


two halves of the end of the world

by la_muerta



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1940s, Alternate Universe - Human, Angst with a Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, World War II, some mention of the horrors of war, sort of a sugar daddy AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-17
Updated: 2020-01-12
Packaged: 2020-10-20 13:10:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 25,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20675930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/la_muerta/pseuds/la_muerta
Summary: On 5 March 1939, during the Cingge parade held on the streets of Batavia to celebrate the Chinese New Year, Alec Lightwood meets the love of his life.Alec is the eldest son of a destitute colonial family. Magnus is the only son of a rich Chinese-Javanese business tycoon with more time and money on his hands than he knows what to do with.They are from two different worlds, and nothing good can ever come of this - and yet.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Updates for this fic will be every two weeks or so. I'm on twitter @tethysea if you want to come and say hi!

On 5 March 1939, during the _Cingge_ parade held on the streets of Batavia as part of the Chinese New Year celebrations, Alec Lightwood meets the love of his life.

He doesn't know it's going to happen yet, though. Right now he's pushing through the crowds looking desperately for his younger brother Max, because Max is his responsibility and Max has no concept of how dangerous it is to be running around alone in this chaos. Alec is just glad that his mum made Izzy stay home today, even though it left Izzy seething with rage, because that's one less person he has to worry about. His best friend and adoptive brother Jace trails a few feet behind him, being annoyingly cavalier about it. 

"Max is a big boy. He'll be fine," Jace says complacently.

Alec ignores him pointedly. Alec's at least head and shoulders taller than everyone around him, but Max is scrawny and small for his age and even with his dirty blonde hair setting him apart from most of the people here, he's difficult to spot in this crowd. Firecrackers go off a few feet away and Alec startles at the sudden loud bangs, cursing under his breath. A child dressed in heavy ceremonial robes and makeup, who can't be more than 5 years old, is carried down the street on a wooden platform borne by six men. Then a marching band goes past, trumpets blaring and cymbals crashing in unfamiliar tunes, and a cheer rises a few metres down the street when the stilt-walkers come into view, wearing Chinese period costumes, elaborate headdresses, and the painted faces that denote them as performers of Chinese street opera. Batavia may be the capital of the Dutch East Indies, but the Chinese immigrants and their Javanese-mixed descendants form the majority of the population.

Alec's thin white cotton shirt clings uncomfortably to his sweaty back, the elastic of his black suspenders chaffing in the humidity, and every breath he takes sits heavy and thick in his lungs as the crowd pushes in on all sides. He murmurs apologies as he shoves his way through, but judging from the glares he's getting, his apologies aren't enough to excuse his behaviour - or they probably just don't understand him either. Most of the people here speak Javanese or Hokkien, a Chinese dialect. The Dutch colonials guard their language jealously, and few natives are allowed the privilege of learning it. Alec has seen newspapers written in a version of Malay and he's heard the language being used in the administrative offices, and while he can understand some of that from having grown up with it in the British Malaya, for the most part Alec and his family speak English, a tongue foreign to both the colonials and the natives. 

All around him the volume of voices ebb and flow, and here and there he catches a word or phrase that he almost understands from the tone or expression on the face of the speaker, but most of it washes over him, human sounds made alien in his incomprehension. 

The Lightwoods moved to Batavia less than a month ago, but Alec has lived in the tropics most of his life. The climate is familiar, the food almost recognisable, but the city is not. While Alec doesn't miss being forced to make civil conversation with the eligible daughters of the other colonial families, it is strange to be cut off from the society of his peers and old school-fellows, and even stranger to have nobody else to talk to but his family.

They have a house right at the fringe of the Dutch residential area, and because they are British they have automatically been conferred _gelijkgesteld_ status - equal to the Dutch. But the house is a rundown thing that feels like it's on the verge of being swallowed by the forest creeping into their backyard, and it is in desperate need of repairs. Three days ago it rained, and Alec found exactly twenty-two leaks in the roof. They had to use every pail, pot, bowl, and cup in the house to collect the rainwater, including the fine bone China tea set Maryse received as a wedding gift and brought with her all the way from England, and still it wasn't enough.

Unfortunately, they don't have the money to hire anybody to do the repairs. Alec suspects that they might not even have the money to buy the materials so he and Jace can risk breaking their necks attempting to do it themselves. They can't afford servants, which has taken some getting used to. They can barely afford school for Max and Izzy, but Maryse has enrolled them anyway, even if classes are taught in Dutch; Jace isn't too bothered about not getting a chance to go to university, and Alec tells himself that school will just have to wait. They can't afford the passage home to England, not that going back to a place that they left when Izzy was a toddler would necessarily improve their situation. 

The fact is, the Lightwoods are deep in debt. Robert Lightwood had been doing a middling business in the rubber trade when the Great Depression hit and everything went belly up, but even then they wouldn't have been in such dire straits if he hadn't squandered what little money they had left on drink and gambling. Robert was eventually found dead in a ditch, probably beaten to death when the robbers had discovered that he didn't have a single penny on him. The debts he racked up before his untimely death are the reason Maryse had to sell off all her jewellery and their house in Melaka to stave off their creditors, and even then she found it prudent to use what little money she had left to buy emergency passage for the whole family from Melaka to Batavia, putting them out of the immediate reach of the violent wrath of their creditors.

Maryse has a job here as a school teacher, a position she obtained through an obscure connection with a childhood friend, but her salary will barely be enough to make ends meet for a family of five. Alec and Jace will have to find jobs as well to help pay off their father's debts so that they can stop living in fear that their creditors will find ways to make their lives hell, and eventually return to England. 

Alec's only turned 18 a few months ago, and suddenly he's the man of the house. In a strange way, nothing has changed despite his new status, because his mother has always been the real driving force keeping the household running and the children clothed, fed, and out of trouble. It isn't like Alec doesn't still have the love and support of his family to fall back on, and Alec has never been the sort to shy away from responsibilities or bemoan what needs to be done. The only thing that's changed is the realisation that he is no longer a boy, no longer allowed to be one even if he wanted to.

Unfortunately, half the businesses in town have been closed for the Chinese New Year since they arrived in Batavia, which has delayed Alec's plans to find work. Maryse had allowed them to bring Max out to watch the parade only because the _Cingge_ parade feels like the first sign of liveliness in a long while - and Alec has managed to lose his baby brother within fifteen minutes of being here. So far, proving himself as a responsible adult capable of looking after his family is off to a great start. 

The road has been blocked so the parade can pass through, so there are cars parked all along the side of the road, only some of them occupied. Alec spots some children perched precariously on the roofs, having climbed up there to get a better view of the parade, and for one heart-stopping moment he scans the faces in case Max has gotten it into his head to do the same. 

A car horn blares, and Jace tries to pull Alec out of the way before they both realise that the car isn't moving - and that there's a familiar face waving excitedly at them through the windscreen. 

"Max? What in god's name..." Alec mutters.

The curbside passenger door of the glossy black town car opens, and a man in a crisp white suit steps out to greet them. He looks Chinese, or is perhaps of mixed-Javanese descent judging from the warm tone of his skin, and his fingers are laden with thick rings of gold and jade. The tropical heat doesn't seem to touch him, although to be fair he has been sitting in the comfort of a luxurious car all this while instead of running around like a mad man through the throngs of people. Alec thinks they might be about the same age, give or take a few years, but Alec has never been very good at this sort of thing. But Alec notices all these things later when Magnus is giving them a lift home after the parade in his beautiful five-seater Cadillac that Jace gushes over and Alec feels too grimy to sit in - because right now he's smiling at Alec, and Alec can't even remember how to breathe.

Then time starts moving again, and all Alec can think is: _Oh no_.

"You must be Max's brothers," he addresses them in perfect English. His accent sounds more English than Alec's, even. "Someone knocked Max into the street in front of my car and I thought he might be more comfortable watching the parade from here."

"I'm sorry for the trouble. Come on, Max, it's time to go home," Alec says stiffly.

"It's no trouble at all," he assures Alec. "Why don't both of you come in as well? It's a bit of a squeeze but I think we'll manage."

"Don't mind if I do," Jace says with a grin, and tears his eyes away from the gleaming car to hold out a hand to their new acquaintance. "I'm Jonathan, but everyone calls me Jace." 

"I'm Magnus," he replies, shaking Jace's hand, and Alec has no choice now but to introduce himself as well. 

"Alec Lightwood."

"It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Alec," Magnus says with a brilliant smile. 

\--

Jace and Max are entirely too loose-lipped on the trip home, telling Magnus all about the unfortunate circumstances that led to the Lightwoods moving to Batavia, and Alec is sure that they've warned Magnus away. But his glossy black car draws up outside their house the next day, much to the delight of Max - and surprisingly, Jace, who has become quite enamoured with the automobile. Maryse is wary of their unexpected guest at first, but Magnus turns on the charm and eventually manages to win her over when she learns that he has recently returned from his studies at the University of Cambridge, and Alec is forced to endure more of Magnus' company when he's invited for tea. Izzy is desperately curious and asks many questions, having always wanted to study at Cambridge, and Alec is dismayed to find that Magnus isn't just kind and patient but intelligent and well-spoken.

By the time Magnus takes leave of the Lightwoods, the sun is a glowing orange disc low in the horizon, and the air is full of buzzing mosquitoes. Alec is tasked with seeing their guest off properly by walking him to his car, and Alec can only assume that Magnus' driver has the patience of a saint because he's been waiting out here in the afternoon heat for hours. 

"You're a man of few words," Magnus observes, his hand lingering on the handle of the car door. 

Alec shrugs. "I had nothing to say."

"Really? Or are you just afraid of speaking your mind?" 

Well, if he wants Alec to speak plainly, Alec is only too glad to oblige. "Why did you come here today? You've seen the state of our house - we have nothing to offer you. Besides, we might not be Dutch, but you and I are still..."

"Too different?" Magnus asks with a smile. To Alec's surprise, Magnus doesn't take offence at his blunt words. "My father despises the Dutch, and unfortunately the feeling is mutual. He thinks it's unfair that they have chosen to give _gelijkgesteld_ status to the Japanese before the Chinese, which is why he sent me to England for my studies," he says. "But you're right, of course - you're white, a colonial. I would be branded a traitor to the cause if the rest of them knew that I was associating with your family."

"You're part of the independence movement?" Alec asks with a frown. It makes even less sense for Magnus to take an interest in the Lightwoods. 

Magnus shrugs. "My father would like me to take over the family business, but I have little interest in his opium dens. Being involved in the Youth Congress helps to pass the time."

"Is that why you're here? You thought it'd be amusing?"

Magnus raises an eyebrow at him. "Perhaps I sympathised with your family's situation and simply wanted to offer my friendship. Not everything comes with a price, Alec."

Magnus gets into his car, leaving Alec to watch the black car go shuddering and jerking down the narrow dirt path that barely qualifies as a road.

The next day, Magnus' black car doesn't come, but his driver does, together with a few men and a horse-drawn cart laden with wood and tools. Alec and Jace are the only ones home, and there is some confusion while Alec tries to figure out what they are doing here with his stuttering attempts at Malay, but one word finally makes sense: Magnus.

By the time the men leave, the Lightwoods have a roof that no longer leaks when it rains, and Alec has an address for a shophouse in town.

The doors and window shutters of the shophouse are closed when Alec arrives. The house occupied by Magnus is at the end of a row of a dozen similar buildings on a fairly busy street, and there's plenty of traffic: trishaws, cars, bicycles, horse-drawn carts, hawkers on foot balancing wicker baskets on their shoulders and advertising their wares at the top of their voices. Alec attracts a few curious glances from passers-by as he stands there wondering whether he should try knocking again, and there are so many people around that at first Alec almost dismisses the loud moan as something else until he hears another louder moan coming from somewhere upstairs. Alec freezes, eyes wide - he should probably come back another time, since Magnus is clearly... _busy_. But he could have sworn that he heard two male voices, and perverse curiosity keeps him there. 

A few minutes later, the door opens and a young man steps out. He isn't dressed too differently from Alec, but his lips are slightly swollen and he flashes a lascivious smile at Alec, eyes raking over Alec's body from head to toe with interest. He says something to Alec, and Alec doesn't have to understand the language to understand his intentions when the man leans in too close and thrusts his hips forward brazenly. 

"I'm not interested," Alec says quickly, shaking his head emphatically. 

There are footsteps down the stairs and Magnus approaches the door wearing some sort of black silk robe, drawn by Alec's voice. "Alec?" he asks, a wary expression on his face. His shoulders seem broader in the loose silk. Alec swallows hard.

"I need to speak to you," Alec says, firmly ignoring Magnus' other guest.

Magnus invites Alec in to wait and excuses himself while he gets dressed. The first floor of the shophouse probably serves as some sort of casual meeting room, with expensive-looking dark wood furniture arranged around a low table that holds a heavy porcelain ashtray. There are Chinese ink paintings of mountains and rivers on the walls, as well as a framed photo of two laughing men sitting in a field somewhere that's decidedly not here. A writing desk with a shiny black telephone sitting on its polished surface takes up one corner of the room. The whole room smells strongly of cigarette smoke and sandalwood incense. 

"What can I do for you, Alec?" Magnus asks as he comes downstairs again and settles in the chair opposite Alec. He's more guarded than he usually is today, and Alec thinks he understands why. 

"How much do I owe you? For the repairs." 

Magnus purses his lips. "Nothing." He runs a hand idly down the carved wood of the armrest. "How much do I owe you not to tell anyone about my visitor?"

"Nothing," Alec replies firmly. "Not everything comes with a price." 

Magnus quirks a smile at him, and Alec sees the tension go out of his shoulders. 

"But-"

"But?" 

"I can't accept your charity. I don't have the money now, but when I get a job I'll pay you back for the repairs," Alec says. 

Magnus heaves a sigh, his smile turning wry. He cocks his head at Alec, then rests his chin in the palm of his hand as he leans forward. "You're looking for a job? Well, I happen to be looking for a personal assistant. The position is yours if you want it."

The room is dark and quiet, the light, heat, and sound from the outside world mostly filtered out by the thin slats of wood, and Magnus is the embodiment of everything Alec has ever wanted but isn't allowed to have.

"I'll take it."


	2. Chapter 2

Magnus had lived in England for almost three years while he was studying at Fitzwilliam College in Cambridge. He had expected to be miserably homesick and lonely, because his father had insisted that he travel to England alone without even a servant to accompany him, so that he would learn not to take for granted the comforts provided for by his father's money. And while there were some things about England that Magnus had never really gotten used to - the cold and the damp, the strange food that all seemed bland and dull compared to the rich flavours of home, the houses made of cold stone instead of warm wood, and the uncomfortable feeling of always being the odd man out whenever he walked into a room - all these had been a small price to pay for something his father had unintentionally given him a taste of: freedom. 

He had just enough money to buy a few sets of clothes in the latest fashions to distract people from the colour of his skin, and so he did. His father had hired an English tutor for him when he was still in high school so the language was not completely out of his reach, but Magnus learnt how to sound exactly like his peers, practicing in the mirror. He showed his professors that he could more than keep up with his lessons, and earned the grudging respect of his schoolmates on his own merit, not his father's clout. He learnt how to cook, to wash and mend his own clothes, to take care of himself. But by far the best thing that happened to him was becoming friends with Ragnor, whose blunt and frank opinions were a breath of fresh air after a lifetime of people telling him only what he wanted to hear. Maybe the nights were too quiet without the _orong-orong_ making music with their wings in the forest and the scaly _chik-chak_ chirping in the eaves, and Magnus had been mistaken for a servant on more than one occasion, but in England, Magnus had been allowed to be himself, and not his father's son. 

Magnus thinks that may be why he was so drawn to the Lightwoods when he met them. He had left Indonesia a self-absorbed little boy terrified of upsetting his father and returned a man with his own opinions and sense of self, only to find that the man he had grown into no longer fit into the spaces which had once been home. The Lightwoods speak his language - not just English, but the language of otherness, of being forcibly ejected from the past but still floundering to find a footing in the future.

Magnus' mother died when he was a baby and since his father never remarried he had remained an only child, so the Lightwoods hold another source of fascination for him - the way that they are as a family. When Magnus found out that Alec had been walking all the way to town every morning to come to work because he didn't want to waste money on the fare for the bus, Magnus bought five shiny new bicycles for the whole family. He, Alec, and Jace spent an entire afternoon teaching Max and Izzy how to ride a bicycle, and eventually even Maryse was persuaded to try out one of the bicycles, since Magnus had bought one for her as well. After Izzy and Max had been shooed back into the house by their mother to help out with dinner, Magnus had raced Jace up and down the dirt path at breakneck speed, both of them whooping and laughing like children, while Alec chased after them in exasperation. It was the most fun Magnus had had in ages. 

Although he has only known them for a few weeks, Magnus has become very fond of all the Lightwoods. Max reminds him of himself as a child, fearless and eager for new experiences. Izzy is bright and confident, Jace is easy-going and forthright, and even Maryse doesn't merely tolerate him because he is her son's employer. She is a practical woman to be sure, and Magnus thinks she likes him mostly because he is good to her children. But while Maryse is clearly aware of the differences in their status, race, and financial circumstances, she seems willing to see beyond that. 

And then, of course, there's Alec. He's a little bit of all the things Magnus' likes about the rest of his family - smart, frank, open-minded - but he's also so endearingly responsible and serious that Magnus doesn't know what to do with him. Magnus sees him every day, but of all the Lightwoods, Alec is the one who keeps his distance. It's possible that Alec is trying to draw a clear line between them, that Magnus is his employer and not a friend, but Magnus thinks it is more than that. He has seen the way Alec looks at him, especially since the first afternoon that Alec visited the shophouse and accidentally witnessed Magnus' indiscretion with his guest. Magnus understands why Alec would feel a need to protect himself - Alec is the eldest son, and the man of the house. The Lightwoods are in a precarious situation as it is, and any further scandal attached to their name may be fatal for the futures of his younger siblings, particularly Izzy.

Magnus dreamt up the personal assistant job on the spot when Alec was being infuriating about not accepting what Magnus saw as a simple kindness to new friends, but he is starting to regret his impulsiveness now. Spending so much time together is dangerous - for them both.

Magnus has given Alec the key to the shophouse, so he lets himself in every morning to tidy up the rooms downstairs until Magnus wakes up and comes down from his bedroom. In the absence of having any proper duties, Alec acts more like a servant even though Magnus already has people who come in to cook and clean; Magnus hears the servants grumbling about the tall white man hovering behind them in the kitchen at first, although they get used to him after a while. By the time Magnus comes downstairs, Alec already has his breakfast and the morning newspaper ready. Mostly to tease Alec, Magnus has him read the newspapers to him while he eats - Alec's Malay is atrocious and he knows it, but he tries his best and Magnus tries very hard not to laugh at his efforts, which improve every day. 

The news itself is sobering as well; there has been talk of Japan's war against China spreading to the Dutch East Indies for years, but every day it seems more likely that rumours will soon become a reality.

Magnus takes a bath after breakfast, leaving Alec to help him sort through the letters and papers on his desk. He has let a lot of things accumulate in the months that he has been home, mostly newspapers and newsletters from the parties driving the independence movement as well as some books, and they are admittedly in a bit of a mess. One day, Alec happens across an entire stash of letters with postmarks from England, and Alec is understandably curious. 

"Oh, those are from Ragnor," Magnus tells Alec, and he knows there's no hiding the fondness in his voice. He has a framed photo on the wall of him and Ragnor sitting on the banks of River Cam, incongruous amongst the calligraphy and paintings that came with the shophouse when he rented it, and he gestures to it to bring it to Alec's attention. "He's my dearest friend. He was a year ahead of me in Cambridge, but we started arguing about something or other, and the rest, as they say, is history."

"I see. So you were... together?" Alec asks hesitantly.

Magnus stares at Alec in horror. "With _Ragnor_? Never _ever_ suggest something like that again," he says, shuddering. "Just the thought of it is making me feel ill. Perhaps I should mention this conversation in my next letter to Ragnor - after all, if I have to live with the memory of your words, so does he."

Magnus' dramatics coaxes a rare laugh from Alec, which feels like a personal achievement. On the other hand, Magnus is sure he isn't imagining the way Alec relaxes and seems a little bit more cheerful that day, and that is a Pandora's box Magnus is trying to keep the lid shut on.

\-- 

So on _Ceng Beng, _when Magnus is forced to make the trip to the ancestral home in Magelang where his father still lives, it is a sort of relief to be away from Alec and the rest of the Lightwoods for a while, to clear his head. Magelang is on the other side of the island, a full day's journey by train, and Magnus makes the journey alone on his own insistence. 

The train is little more than a rickety line of metal boxes strung together, stuffy and uncomfortable - there are things even his father's considerable wealth can't buy, and a brand new railway system more like what Magnus was used to in England is unfortunately beyond his reach. Magnus does have the whole compartment to himself though, and while the incessant metallic shudders and jolts of the train fill the silence, Magnus lights a cigarette and thinks about Alec, and of possibilities and impossibilities.

Magnus doesn't have a problem with casual relationships - in fact, all his relationships so far have been about a moment's connection and a few hours of shared pleasure, but that's because he knows that it's all that he's allowed to have. Alec isn't the only one with responsibilities to his family, and honestly Alec may actually be freer than Magnus in that regard, since it is not unusual for some colonial men to remain bachelors. Magnus, on the other hand, is his father's only son, and he's known from a young age that he is eventually expected to marry a good Chinese girl from a family of equal standing - or two, or three, until he eventually finds the wife who can bear him sons to carry on the family name. His father will let him sow his wild oats and have his fun until it's time for him to come home and take up the reins of the family business, and as much as Magnus detests the idea of this future that has been planned out for him, it is a future that he has been brought up to expect. 

Becoming friends with the entire Lightwood family was his first mistake, he sees that now. If they didn't mean anything to him and Alec's well-being didn't mean anything to him, he could have a whirlwind affair with Alec and not care about the consequences when he is eventually forced to end their involvement with each other. Even if he could shake off the yoke of his father's expectations, there is a storm brewing in the horizon, and be it war or revolution that finds them, Alec and his family will have to go back to England at some point. So why start something that is doomed to end? 

Magnus stubs his cigarette out carefully in an ashtray and watches the green of the paddy fields and the purple shadows of mountains and sleeping volcanoes in the distance zoom past his window in a blur. The problem is, Magnus knows it's too late. He's already hopelessly infatuated with Alec - and the worst thing is, he knows Alec feels the same.

His train arrives at Magelang past midnight. There is a chauffeured car waiting for him, but he knows his father is probably asleep and Magnus won't be forced to speak to him until after the festivities the next day, which is a small mercy. 

It is drizzling the next day. It almost always rains on _Ceng Beng_.

_Ceng Beng_ falls on the fifteenth day after the spring equinox, and is a day for honouring the ancestral spirits. At sunrise, Magnus and his father make their way up Gunung Tidar on foot, followed by a bevy of servants carrying the offerings and necessary paraphernalia for the ceremony. The air is cool and crisp from the rain, but a servant holds a black umbrella above his head that blocks his view of the magnificent gold and rose of the sky, and his father's imposing figure ahead of him seems to stand taller than the mountains that surround them. The tombs of Magnus' ancestors are midway up the hill in a spot that faces the sunrise - elaborate black marble gravestones with the names of whole families listed in red and gold paint, placed on raised concrete platforms wide enough for both Magnus and his father to stand side by side while the servants hold umbrellas over their heads. Magnus is a tall man but his father is taller still, and they form a striking image standing next to each other in their stark black suits, the family resemblance clear in their features and bearing. They raise sticks of sandalwood incense to their foreheads as they pay their respects first to the god of the Earth, then to the wandering spirits with no family, then finally to their own dead. Magnus is just going through the motions, but sometimes he wonders if his father is truly praying to the spirits of the dead or to the gods, and if so, what a man like him prays for.

A makeshift table is placed in front of the tombs, heavily laden with flowers and food: a whole roast pig, as well as roast chickens and ducks; bowls of rice with chopsticks placed next to them; _lumpia_, a mixture of minced bamboo shoots, chicken, and shrimp wrapped in paper-thin pastry skins made from wheat flour; bowls of fruit, including _pisang raja_, the king of bananas; sweet and sticky cakes made from glutinous rice; and cups of rice wine. There is too much food here for them - Magnus and his father are the only two members left of their family, his father having been an only child as well - so most of it is going to be distributed amongst the servants and their families later. The heavy fragrance of chrysanthemum blossoms, food, and incense mar the fresh mountain air as Magnus' father symbolically sweeps a year's accumulation of dust and dead leaves from the tombs before placing a strip of yellow paper on top of each headstone to indicate that the grave has been visited.

There is only one grave here that Magnus has any interest in, and his father allows him to take care of it on his own. It is small compared to the rest, but still too large for one person. It comes as a shock to Magnus every year when he is reminded that his father expects to be buried in the same tomb as his mother some day, that his father is capable of being sentimental enough that he would want to be buried with the woman he was married to and perhaps even loved in some way. Magnus can feel his father's eyes on him as he washes the marble headstone by hand with clear water, not caring about the state of his clothes.

If he could talk to his mother now, what would he tell her? _Mama, I met a boy. He's stubborn and sweet, but there is no future for us._

Sometimes Magnus thinks it may be a good thing that his mother is no longer alive. He can just imagine that she sympathises and understands. 

After they get home, Magnus is in a hurry to return to Batavia to avoid any sort of conversation with his father, but he knows it's too much to hope for. A servant comes to deliver his father's summons just as he is packing, and the train doesn't leave for hours yet. He squares his shoulders and tries his best not to look like a petulant child when he enters his father's study.

"_Apak,_" Magnus greets him curtly. 

His father looks up and dismisses the servants with a wave of his hand. "Leaving so soon? You've barely spoken a word to me since you've been home." 

Magnus immediately knows he's not going to like what his father has to say - his father only speaks in English when he doesn't want the servants to understand what they're talking about. 

"Are you still involved in the independence movement? I'd thought you'd have come to your senses and left that nonsense behind now that all the leaders of your revolution have been exiled."

"And yet you still send money back to China in aid of their losing war against Japan," Magnus can't stop himself from retorting, then lets out a mocking bark of laughter. "Oh, wait - you only send money back to keep up with appearances. If you cared about anybody but yourself, you wouldn't be selling that poison called opium, bleeding people dry of their life-savings."

"How dare you speak to me like that?" his father hisses, eyes blazing. "Sending you to England was a mistake. It's filled your head with foolish dreams and made you forget how a good son is supposed to behave."

"Well, maybe I don't want to be a good son," Magnus bites out. 

His father smiles indulgently and shakes his head. "You say that now, while you have the money to buy you everything your heart desires. What would you do without me?" 

Magnus scowls. A part of him wants to tell his father to go to hell, but Magnus has other people to think of now - if his father stops giving him money, he can't afford to pay Alec either, and he knows how difficult it was for Alec to find a job. So he holds his tongue for now.

"I think it's time you took on some responsibilities and stopped behaving like a child," his father finally says. "I have some businesses in Batavia, and I'm handing them over to you now. Do not disappoint me." 

Magnus doesn't answer, but his father seems to take his sullen silence for acquiescence. "Good. It's settled then," his father says, standing up. "Stay for lunch. The cook has made your favourite."

Magnus swallows his pride and nods stiffly, but his mind is already whirling with plans and ideas. He's done letting his father plan his life for him. After all, if he won't fight for his own future, who will?


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I'm very late with this *hides* Went a bit crazy writing Halloween fic last month, sorry. I'll be focussing on this fic again now that I'm done with that!

Magnus has only been gone for three days, but he'd insisted that it wasn't necessary for Alec to pick him up at the train station and Alec hadn't been able to think of any good reason for insisting that he should be waiting there in the middle of the night. So on the morning after Magnus returns from his journey to Magelang, Alec cycles downtown to Magnus' shophouse at almost double the speed, feeling slightly foolish about his eagerness to see Magnus again. 

Alec is almost there when he wonders if it's a bad idea to be here this early. When he had first started working for Magnus, he'd left home as soon as the sun rose and it was light enough to see where he was going so that he wouldn't accidentally step into a pothole in the poorly-maintained dirt road that led out from the Lightwoods' home and twist his ankle. This meant that he would arrive at the shophouse just as the servants were beginning to prepare the morning meal, and Alec would have the time to tidy up before Magnus woke up. But this also meant that Alec would sometimes bump into Magnus' overnight "guests", a mix of men and women - not necessarily prostitutes, but probably singers or dancers who had caught Magnus' eye and didn't mind spending the night with a rich young man for a price. They almost always tried to flirt with Alec, which always made him uncomfortable, so after the first week, Alec had taken care to wander around in the town for a while so that he would still arrive at the shophouse before Magnus woke up but after his overnight guests were gone.

In the end, Alec reasons with himself that Magnus came in on the midnight train after a full day of travelling and was unlikely to have had interest in seeking out a bedmate, and continues his journey directly to the shophouse. To his surprise, when he arrives he sees all the servants leaving with their bags, most of them grumbling and shooting hostile looks his way. Alec doesn't speak Javanese, so it's not like he can ask them what the hell is going on. Instead, he chains his bicycle securely outside at the gate and hurries into the dark interior. 

"Magnus? It's Alec. Is everything alright?" he calls out. 

He's just about to head upstairs to Magnus' personal chambers to look for Magnus, propriety be damned, when Magnus pokes his head out at the top of the stairs. 

"Are they all gone?" Magnus asks. 

"Yes, I think so," Alec replies. "Why did they leave?" 

"I got drunk, threw tantrum and fired all of them in a fit of rage," Magnus replies cheerfully as he makes his way down. 

Magnus doesn't look drunk at all, and despite Magnus' wealth and position, Alec has never seen Magnus be rude to the servants, and Alec is more confused than ever. "Did something happen when you were in Magelang?" 

Magnus' expression grows serious. "My father wants me to take over his businesses in Batavia. He runs a sizeable number of opium dens here - and you know how I feel about them, Alexander. I'd rather set fire to all of them, or even better, see them burn themselves to the ground."

"You plan to sabotage your father? That's why you fired all the servants - you were afraid they might betray you to your father," Alec says, catching on. 

Magnus nods. "Luckily, my father will think nothing of it. He thinks I'm nothing more than a spoiled brat, only interested in frivolous pursuits." 

"Your father does not know you at all," Alec observes, and Magnus flashes a small smile at him. 

"Nor do I want him to," Magnus says with a shrug. "It is crucial that my father doesn't get wind of my plans, because he could make life very miserable for me, and I'm not ready to challenge him head-on yet. Or perhaps I'm just a coward." 

"He's your father," Alec says simply, and for a moment he knows Magnus understands him completely. If Robert Lightwood had still been alive, he would have had _expectations_. The only thing Alec regrets about his father's passing is that Robert should have had to settle his own debts.

Magnus shakes his head and smiles a little self-deprecatingly. "Isn't it strange how much our fathers continue to have a hold over us even when we are grown men? He raises his voice and I'm a child again, desperate for his approval. In Hokkien we would call what I'm doing _put hau_ \- unfilial, the worst crime a parent can accuse their child of, and a most unforgivable sin."

It suddenly strikes Alec that Magnus may want to release him from his employment as well. Magnus' father would never use Alec as a spy because he's a colonial, and anyway Alec hopes Magnus knows he would never betray him like that, but maybe Magnus will see Alec as a liability anyway. If Jace's persistent difficulty finding a job has taught Alec anything, it's that the tides are turning; only a white man will hire another white man, and the Lightwoods aren't even the right sort. 

"I want to help," Alec says anyway, hoping against hope.

"It might be dangerous, Alexander. Each of the players in this business has their own territories and there is an intricate balance that even I have yet to figure out. I know my father has spies and thugs in his employ, and I can only assume that is the standard. I don't plan to, of course, but I might run afoul of them," Magnus says.

"All the more reason why you shouldn't do this alone," Alec says firmly.

After only the briefest hesitation, Magnus finally smiles and nods, and Alec is sure that he isn't imagining Magnus' relief. Alec looks around at the empty shophouse and the dark kitchens where the servants hadn't even had the time to start the fires, and Magnus seems to read his mind. 

"I suppose it's just you and me now," Magnus says.

Alec knows Magnus probably doesn't mean it the way that he wishes he does, but it doesn't stop his heart from beating a little faster, because he's a hopeless fool.

"Have you eaten?" he asks Magnus. 

There are always plenty of food vendors on the street outside, carrying their wares in baskets or on the back of bicycles, or in _gerobak_ pushcarts. Alec buys a few things that he's seen the servants cook for Magnus - cakes of compressed rice, still carrying the fragrance of the banana leaves they were cooked in, swimming in a turmeric-laced spicy yellow chicken soup called _soto ayam_, as well as steamed fish dumplings and vegetables drenched in a roasted peanut sauce seasoned with chilli, soy sauce, garlic, and other spices.

Over breakfast, they talk about Magnus' plans, but Magnus admits that he's spent all his life trying to distance himself from his father's business, and there's very little that he knows about it. His father has put him in charge but in more of an accounting capacity - making sure nobody is diddling the books, and familiarising himself with what it takes to run the business. The shadier aspects of the business that have to do with the black market trade and criminal activities are still handled by Magnus' father.

"I know my father. All his businesses will appear perfectly legitimate on the surface, nothing that will get him in trouble with the Dutch authorities, but beneath that it will be festering cesspool of blood and murder," Magnus says bitterly. "Of course it will be highly suspicious if he gets into trouble the moment I take over the business. I mustn't suddenly seem too keen either, since I've spent all my life telling him I don't want anything to do with it."

"If you don't want to make it obvious that your father's establishments are being singled out, does that mean you intend to tear down _all_ of them?" Alec says slowly.

"Opium is a blight on this country, morally equivalent to slavery. It would be an honour to play a part in its demise," Magnus says fiercely. It's then that Alec realises that Magnus intends to start a war.

"Since we can't deal with individual establishments directly, perhaps we could cut them off at the source," Alec suggests.

"My thoughts exactly," Magnus agrees. "I have a vague idea where to start - there is a factory in Salemba where the fumes of opium are so strong that you feel dizzy just cycling past, and the swallows taking shelter in the eaves of the building get so overwhelmed that they fall to the floor, stupefied. That must be where the Dutch refine the raw opium."

"But if that factory is controlled by the Dutch, you can't possibly shut it down on your own."

"I don't know, and I need some time to figure out how everything comes together before I can make further plans. In the meantime, I will need to throw my father off the scent - make it seem like I don't care. Drink and dance the nights away, and behave exactly like the good-for-nothing disgrace he thinks I am."

"I'm not sure I'm going to be of any use to you there," Alec says with a frown.

Magnus smiles. "All I ask for is the pleasure of your company."

\--

In the weeks that follow, Magnus' plan takes shape, and _grows_, and Alec's unease grows with it. To keep up his charade, Magnus frequents the dance halls and night clubs until the wee hours of the morning, although these start to segue into clandestine back alley meetings with people from the independence movement. By day, Magnus feigns boredom when his father's harried employees try to interest him in bookkeeping, asking seemingly random questions about where they get their _tjandoe_, or refined opium, and why this person is in charge of this or that instead of something else, slowly figuring out the ins and outs of his father's business.

Alec fears that Magnus' yawns aren't all pretend, and that Magnus has bitten off more than he can chew, but it has become almost a mania with Magnus. He only remembers to eat and drink because Alec puts food in front of him, and Alec isn't sure that he's sleeping properly. The worst of it is, Alec can't be there with Magnus like he wants to be, not when it counts. He keeps quiet when the men who work for Magnus' father talk to Magnus on the phone, but he can't go with Magnus when he has to pretend to inspect the dens. He can sit there at their table in the night club dressed in the fancy suits Magnus has had tailor-made for him and watch miserably while Magnus dances and laughs with every girl in the room, but he can't even be seen near Magnus when he meets the people he's working with to sabotage not just his father, but all the other owners of private opium dens and the Dutch authorities. And from what Magnus tells him, the plan now involves increasingly wild ideas like robbery on the high seas and waylaying deliveries of opium, but when Alec brings up his concerns, Magnus smiles tightly and shakes his head.

Back home, Alec has problems of his own to deal with. Jace still hasn't been able to find a job; he had been fixing things around the house until he ran out of things he could fix, then started trying to fix things he couldn't. Among the things Jace has ended up ruining are two of five of the bicycles Magnus bought, which Jace says he dismantled so he could figure out how to put them back together again. Then Max's teacher tells them that Max has been playing truant, and Max simply refuses to tell any of them why - although Magnus manages to find out, god knows how.

"He's being bullied in school. They make fun of him because he can't speak Dutch," Magnus explains when he comes to pick Alec up after dinner one evening. "I'll hire a tutor for him, and Isabelle too. I'm sure Max will catch up in no time."

"Magnus, I can't-" 

"Don't worry about the tutor's fees," Magnus insists. "That's what friends are for."

"Is that what we are? Friends?" Alec asks sharply before he can think better of it. 

They are not _friends_. Friends should be equals, which they are clearly not. Magnus is supposed to be his employer, but what is he paying Alec for? To buy him food with his own money, and wear the fancy clothes he had made for Alec in the first place? To buy presents for Alec's family and hire tutors for his siblings? Magnus just keeps _giving_, even when he's already got too many of his own problems that Alec can't help him with, and it makes Alec unreasonably furious with him. 

Alec gets in the car and turns to face the window, watching the sun set behind the trees. He can feel Magnus' eyes on him, but after a while Magnus simply rolls a window down and lights a cigarette. The car starts to move, and the smoke drifts in anyway.

Their journey to the night club is tense, but Magnus doesn't attempt to broach the topic with Alec, although he's a lot quieter - drinking more, dancing less, his smiles obviously forced. Alec thinks a little guiltily that it's the reason why Magnus is less careful than he usually is, and actually gets drunk. Alec has to help him to the car, then out of it and up the narrow stairs that lead to his private quarters. He helps Magnus out of his jacket and loosens his tie before settling him on the bed, then turns to leave, but Magnus catches his wrist. 

"Stay," Magnus whispers, eyes still closed.

Maybe Magnus is just dreaming, but Alec can't just leave him like this. He extracts his hand from Magnus' grasp gently. "I'll be downstairs," he promises.

Which is how Alec finds himself lying in a chair broad enough to seat two but not anywhere long enough for him to stretch out, watching the ceiling fan spin lazily above him. It's incredibly uncomfortable, since there's nothing much between his back and the hard wood but a thin cushion covered in red silk, but Alec doubts that he's going to get much sleep anyway. The house shifts and creaks, and the sounds of traffic outside and from the adjourning shophouses fill the darkness. It's never really quiet here in Magnus' shophouse - strange how Alec has gotten used to the soft forest sounds in the backyard of the Lightwood's house in just a few months. He's taken off his jacket and folded it to use as a pillow, and his shirt is slung over the back of the chair because it's hot and humid even with the fan on, but it's his thoughts that won't leave him alone. In the time that he has been in Magnus' employ, it has never been so clear to Alec that he's of no use to Magnus; Alec is just another burden on Magnus' shoulders, and he _hates_ it.

Alec falls asleep just as the sky is beginning to grow light, and awakens to someone knocking on the door. Alec gets up groggily to peer through the slats in the front window and finds that he recognises the visitor - it's the first of Magnus' "guests" he ever accidentally bumped into. Alec opens the door cautiously, and the man's eyes widen in surprise, then a sly smile comes over his face. Belatedly, Alec realises that he's half-dressed, in only a thin cotton singlet and trousers hanging loose off his hips without the suspenders, and what it must look like. 

"If you tell anyone, I-" Alec starts fiercely, then stops. It's not like the man can understand him, so he can't even _threaten_ him properly. 

"Alexander?"

Magnus comes to his rescue once again. Magnus speaks sharply to the man but Alec sees money change hands before their uninvited guest saunters off with a mocking salute at Alec, and by then he is fuming. 

"You don't have to worry about him spreading rumours about you, Alexander, I've seen to it that he won't," Magnus says, entirely missing the point. 

"I'm not worried about me, I'm worried about _you_. Is he going to tell those people from the independence movement that you let a white man spend the night in your home?" Alec snaps. 

Magnus' expression softens. "Oh, Alexander. You needn't worry about that."

"How can I not? People who think nothing of piracy and robbery will not be merciful if they think you're a traitor to the cause," Alec points out unhappily, reaching for his shirt and jacket. He should never have stayed - not just overnight, but in Magnus' life. "Isn't that why you never have people like him over anymore? Because they might be spies?" 

Magnus shakes his head, laughing hollowly. "I'll admit that you were right - I'm in way over my head, and I'm terrified of what I've set in motion. My plans to bring my father down are no longer just _my_ plans anymore," Magnus says. He looks sad and lost, and suddenly much younger; Magnus' usual bravado makes Alec forget that Magnus isn't much older than him sometimes. "But can you think of no other reason why I might not be interested in sleeping with other people anymore?" 

Alec stares, the answer that comes to him seems like the height of self-delusion even before he says it. "Because of me?" 

Magnus' lips twist in a slightly sad smile and he nods, but he can't mean what Alec hopes he means. He can understand Magnus wanting to bed him, but surely that's all that there is to it - and if Magnus wants him, then at least this is one thing that Alec can give him. 

Alec moves before he can lose his nerve, walking towards Magnus. Magnus' eyes are wide but he lets Alec come to him, and he tilts his chin up to let Alec kiss him too hard, too eagerly, their teeth clicking against each other. But Magnus doesn't mind - he guides Alec with a hand on his cheek to slot their lips together and suddenly everything feels right. Alec forgets everything but the softness of Magnus' mouth, the light scratch of stubble, and the quiet contented sounds Magnus is making against his lips. Magnus has one hand resting lightly on his waist, but Alec has one hand fisted in the front of Magnus' shirt, and it's only when Magnus lets out a soft huff of breath that Alec realises he's pushed Magnus against the wall. 

If he lets himself think, the sheer force of everything that is going against them will make him stop, and he doesn't want to stop. 

"Take me upstairs, Magnus."

Magnus hesitates, then takes his hand. 

Even years later, Alec finds that he remembers everything about his first time with Magnus like every single one of his senses has been turned up to the maximum. Sunlight slants in through the window and the ceiling is a chiaroscuro painting of light and shadow cast by the wooden beams running across the roof, each beam a hand's width apart from the other, like bars of a cage. A small electric fan hums and rattles on the table in a corner, the only source of a breeze in the warm, still air of the room. He remembers the smell of charcoal and chestnuts outside, because a hawker is standing out there in the street under the window selling roasted chestnuts, and the feel of the thin cotton sheets against his overheated skin. 

He is naked and lying on his back in Magnus' bed, cock already hard just from kissing Magnus and the anticipation from undressing each other. There's a soft click of glass on wood and Alec turns his head towards the source of the sound - Magnus setting a jar of KY jelly on the bedside table. All of a sudden, the shame of what he's doing brings a rush of heat to his cheeks, but he resists the urge to cover up. His shame is his own burden to bear, and not part of what he's offering Magnus, so it has no place here. He lets his legs remain splayed, nothing hidden from Magnus. 

"Alexander?"

The bed creaks as Magnus gets on the bed between his legs, one hand resting lightly on his thigh, questioning. The shape of Magnus' body is familiar from all the times Alec has watched him, be it moving across the dance floor or sat still at his desk engrossed in some book, but thrillingly unfamiliar in his nakedness. Alec nods, putting his hand over Magnus'.

"I want this. I want _you_."

Magnus unscrews the jar, scooping up some of the contents, and Alec watches him reach for his cock almost like he's in a trance watching this happen to someone else; then Magnus' fingers wrap around his cock, and Alec snaps back into his own body at the contact, letting out a little gasp of shock and pleasure as Magnus strokes him with firm, sure movements. Magnus' other hand goes to his balls, cupping them and rolling them gently, and Alec feels his orgasm building so quickly that there's no stopping it. In a moment it hits him, and he moans as he comes with Magnus' hand on him and Magnus' eyes on him, watching him with a quiet hunger. 

As Alec tries to catch his breath, Magnus leans over him and kisses him, and Alec can't help pulling Magnus down, wanting to feel his weight on him. He can feel the hard length of Magnus' cock pressing against his stomach as he kisses him breathless, and the reminder of it, of how much Magnus wants him, is electric. 

"Do you want to fuck me?" he asks Magnus. 

Magnus' breath catches a little at the crudeness of his words, eyes snapping up to meet his. "Is that what you want?" 

"I want whatever you want," Alec replies, kissing Magnus again. 

He feels Magnus' fingers trailing slickness and his own come to the cleft of his ass, gasping when Magnus' fingertip finds his entrance and circles it. He squeezes his eyes shut, bracing himself for the sting of the penetration, but it hurts less than he thought it would when Magnus slides a finger into him, just to the first knuckle. With Magnus' murmured encouragement he relaxes enough to take the first finger completely, and he buries his face in the crook of Magnus' neck as Magnus starts to move it in and out of him. He takes a second finger with a little more difficulty, pressing his forehead harder into sweat-damp skin and muscle, but when Magnus draws his fingers out and replaces it with the head of his cock, pushing past the tight ring of muscle at his entrance, Alec's fingers dig into Magnus' arms hard enough to bruise and he can't stop himself from crying out. Alec suddenly remembers that the sounds they make upstairs can be heard from the walkway outside and bites down on his lips. 

"Do you want me to stop?"

"Don't stop," Alec gasps out immediately. If they stop now, if he gives himself time to think, this is where it ends. 

So he kisses Magnus instead, giving in to the now-familiar sensation of their lips moving against each other, of his tongue pushing into the heat of Magnus' mouth and Magnus pushing back. He lets Magnus swallow his moans and harsh gasps as Magnus' cock stretches him open slowly, brows furrowed and eyes shut tight as Magnus finally bottoms out, his cock buried to the hilt in Alec's body. 

It's too much, this unbearable intimacy of allowing himself to be this vulnerable, but when he opens his eyes his heart stutters in his chest to find Magnus right there with him. That wasn't the plan; he'd meant only to give his body, not his heart. But even as Magnus begins to move above him and inside him, his eyes full of an emotion neither of them dare to speak aloud, Alec knows it's already too late - was too late weeks ago.

And he can't take it back, any more than he can give back the knowledge of how Magnus looks and sounds like as he takes his own pleasure in the tight heat of Alec's body, of how it feels like for the pleasure inside him to reach breaking point and spill out between them with his body still filled by Magnus' cock, or the satisfaction of watching Magnus shuddering and trembling as he spends himself inside Alec, _because_ of him. He can't give back the knowledge of how it feels like to have Magnus look at him like he is something incredible and beautiful, and to have Magnus kiss him so sweetly afterwards that Alec feels like his heart is bursting, and even if he could he wouldn't - he can't help but feel that giving himself to Magnus has not been a loss of anything on his part, but something gained. 

Afterwards, Magnus cleans them both up and they lie tangled up together, half-dozing and half-watching the light turn gold as it creeps across the floor and makes the shadows in the ceiling grow long.

"We have a superstition here, that if you sleep the afternoon hours away, you steal the same number of hours from your lifespan," Magnus whispers into his shoulder.

All Alec can think of is that it'd be worth it; that he would gladly trade off decades of his life if it meant he could have that same amount of time with Magnus. Alec knows he's young and inexperienced but he's not stupid, and he already knows that nothing good can ever come of this. They can never marry, never live together in any way that wouldn't bring shame to their families. And yet, here in Magnus' arms and in this golden afternoon of stolen time, he can't stop himself from hoping, just a little bit.

And that's the problem with hope - that even a little bit can be a dangerous thing.


	4. Chapter 4

Magnus has always known that Alec has a strong sense of pride, not that it's a bad thing. Alec likes to be useful, likes to be able to take care of the people he loves. That's why Magnus knew that Alec was going to walk out of the door the day that he overstepped and hired the tutor for Max and Isabelle.

He'd expected to wake up to an empty house, or more likely Alec would stay until he woke up to quit Magnus in that serious, proper way of his. Instead, Magnus has somehow ended up with Alec sharing his bed, not just in a moment of ill-advised passion but with sudden regularity, and yet he finds himself less elated about it than he thought he would be. If Alec had seemed hesitant or uncertain about it as well, Magnus wouldn't have let it happen at all, but on the contrary, Alec seems to enjoy the new physical aspect to their relationship and is often the one to initiate, and Magnus is only human.

Alec refuses to stay overnight, claiming that his comings and goings would be less obvious if he blended in with the morning and evening flows of activity in the town, just another ordinary employee going about his business, but Magnus sees the excuse for what it is. Magnus keeps odd hours, and of late Alec has been keeping him company to the dance halls and night clubs, but Alec always goes home to his family even if it's just to steal a few hours of sleep before he's back. Magnus knows Alec fears that his presence will make things difficult for Magnus, which is why he only uses the door that opens to the back alley now, but he thinks Alec doesn't want his family to suspect that he has become Magnus' lover either.

So Alec still comes to Magnus' shophouse at sunrise as is his routine, but instead of staying downstairs tidying up and waiting for Magnus to wake up, he goes upstairs and wakes Magnus with a kiss, like a prince in a fairytale. Except that of course fairytales end with a kiss and a happily ever after, but Alec does more than kiss him chastely on the lips, and if Magnus were a praying sort of man, he would pray to every god he can remember from his childhood that the future he's fighting for will allow him and Alec the possibility of happiness. 

A phone rings, shrill in the quiet. Magnus wakes, frowning, and pulls on his trousers as he gets out of bed. Alec is still asleep, drowsy from the afternoon heat and the pleasure they took in each other a while ago, and if Magnus gets to the phone quickly enough it won't wake him yet. 

He pads downstairs and sighs internally when he realises who it is, but this is good news - it's one of his father's underlings, not the brightest bulb, which has made him an easy target for Magnus. He has proven to be a wealth of information and is eager to please his boss's son, but he also finds it necessary to tell Magnus several long-winded anecdotes before he finally gets to the point, and Magnus can't try to hurry him up too much or he may seem too keen, and he can't afford to make a mistake now at the final hurdle. If all goes well, his allies will know when to expect the next shipment of opium and waylay the vessel before it reaches Batavia, and that's just the beginning. 

Magnus settles into the high-backed swivel chair covered in soft leather, one of the few pieces of furniture in this house that actually belong to him, thankful for his foresight in purchasing this for his personal comfort. He has been getting a bit more rest from the impromptu naps with Alec, but with all the weeks of planning coming into fruition soon, he's strung thin and snappish. He's sorely tempted to demand that the man just tell him what he wants to know when he hears Alec coming down the stairs. Alec has Magnus' black silk robe wrapped around him, and Magnus mouths the name of the person he's speaking to at Alec as he draws closer. Alec nods in understanding, hanging back to observe; then to Magnus' surprise, he moves right in front of him and drops to his knees. Words escape him - he doesn't have to ask Alec what he's doing, that much is obvious when Alec pushes his thighs apart and reaches for his zipper.

He barely manages to stifle his gasp when Alec takes his cock inside the wet heat of his mouth. Everything else is forgotten except Alec looking up at him, his broad shoulders spreading Magnus' thighs and the silk robe falling open just enough for Magnus' to see that Alec is naked under it, and the rush of heat to his groin as his cock hardens in Alec's mouth. Magnus is suddenly dizzy, an intense arousal warring with the _wrongness_ of it. How has it come to this, to his proud Alexander kneeling in front of him _servicing_ him like he's just one of the many meaningless others who have passed through Magnus' life? 

Alec's mouth is still on him, but he just stays there. His hands run soothingly down Magnus' thighs, and Magnus realises that he's forgotten to be annoyed with the man on the phone - has forgotten momentarily what he was supposed to be listening out for. Alec must see in his expression when he realises what Alec is doing and rewards him with gentle suction, just enough to keep Magnus hard. 

The phone conversation still can't end quickly enough, but with Alec providing both encouragement and distraction Magnus manages to observe the necessary niceties until the man finally coughs up the information Magnus needs. Magnus' heart is pounding - not just from the adrenaline rush of his plans falling into place but from Alec working him up, and the moment he hangs up, his hands tangle in Alec's already messy hair. Alec startles a low moan out of him when he bobs his head and starts sucking him in earnest, but when Alec reaches down to touch himself, Magnus can't bear to have Alec kneeling at his feet like this any longer. He urges Alec to get up so he can soothe his swollen lips with kisses, and Alec climbs into his lap, his cock pressing into Magnus' stomach.

The chair creaks under their combined weight. Magnus can feel his cock nestled in the cleft of Alec's ass, sliding and catching at Alec's entrance as Alec rocks back on it, but Magnus just wants to kiss him, kiss away the formless unease and kiss Alec until he understands what he means to Magnus. Except that Alec breaks the kiss, pushing at Magnus' shoulders so that he's slouching down in his seat, then reaches behind himself to take Magnus' cock firmly in hand. 

"Alexander, you don't have to-" the rest of Magnus' words are lost in a gasp of surprise. Alec is slick and ready for him, and just thinking of him preparing himself before he came downstairs to find Magnus drives away all other coherent thought from Magnus' mind. 

Alec throws his head back a little as he sinks down on Magnus' cock, his low moans drowned out by the creaking of the chair. Does Alec even know how he looks like this? The robe that he borrowed from Magnus has fallen open completely, so even though the black silk is draped over his shoulders it bares all of his body to Magnus; the pink flush of exertion spreading down from his cheeks to his chest, his nipples visibly peaked, the light sheen of sweat on his body, the trail of hair from his chest tapering across his flat stomach and down to where his cock is so hard it's curving towards his own body. Magnus may not be able to see his cock sliding into Alec but he can feel Alec clenching around him as he bears down to take him deeper, enveloping him in tight heat. Alec settles his weight fully in Magnus' lap, his body filled to the hilt, and for a moment neither of them move. Alec's breathing is harsh and quick, his brows slightly furrowed and eyes squeezed shut, clearly overwhelmed. 

"Alexander?"

Alec opens his eyes, and for a second, Magnus sees a fleeting glimpse of _Alec_ \- his fear, his shame, his desire, his love - all of him, the way he saw it in Alec's eyes during their first time together, and not just the part of himself that Alec thinks he's allowed to show. But then Alec blinks it away, and before Magnus can even try to draw it back out, Alec lifts himself off Magnus' lap and slams himself down in one swift movement, and it's too easy to lose themselves in the waves of pleasure as Alec begins to fuck himself mercilessly on Magnus' cock. 

Still, Magnus tries. He can't reach Alec's lips with his head tilted back like this so he kisses Alec at the place just over his heart and holds Alec close, but he could be trying to hold on to a dream. No matter how hard he tries, it feels like Alec is running away from him even as he chases his own pleasure. Being with someone he cares about for once should not make him feel like he's breaking apart, but when Alec shudders and comes with a soft cry and pulls Magnus over the edge with him, Magnus is left feeling wrecked and ruined. 

They haven't even had a chance to catch their breath before Alec is easing himself off Magnus. He doesn't look up to meet Magnus' eyes and Magnus sees his cheeks burn red involuntarily when Magnus' release starts to trickle down his thighs. 

"I'm going to take a bath," Alec says, and flees before Magnus can say anything or try to show him any sort of tenderness.

Magnus' heart sinks as he watches him go. He thought he had made it clear to Alec that not everything comes with a price, and that Alec had been on the same page, but now he thinks he sees where they misunderstood each other. Alec still believes that everything comes with a price, particularly when he's the one who's supposed to pay it. 

\--

Magnus resolves to stop sleeping with Alec until they have a chance to clear the air, and hopefully an opportunity will present itself soon enough. After Magnus passes the information on, he will be forced to spend a few days lying low until the deed is done, and they will have time to talk.

But on the morning after Magnus sets everything in motion, he wakes up alone after a night of fitful sleep. Alec hasn't come.

Magnus waits for half an hour or so, trying unsuccessfully to convince himself Alec has been held up by something innocuous, like traffic. He's not supposed to leave his house, and it's only the fear of leading trouble to Alec's doorstep that keeps him home for now. Instead, Magnus pays one of the children playing on the street outside to make a trip to the Lightwoods' residence to find out what's going on, and the boy eventually returns with a brief message in Alec's blocky handwriting that everything is fine but he will be late.

The timing is too coincidental, and saying everything is fine to keep Magnus away if he's in trouble is exactly the sort of thing Alec would do, but the boy tells Magnus that the tall man who gave him the note just seemed harassed. Magnus goes through too many cigarettes, restlessly pacing in the sitting room, and just after noon there is a click in the lock - of the main door. Magnus tenses, half-hoping, half-wary, and a looming spectre strolls in from the bright sunlight outside.

"_Apak,_" Magnus blurts out, greeting his father almost on reflex, but mostly in shock. There is no way his father could have gotten here from Magelang in less than a day - which can only mean that he has been here in Batavia all along, observing Magnus. 

His father walks towards him, and Magnus stands his ground. Magnus may have gambled and lost, but he can face the consequences like a man. The only problem is, with a sick twist in his gut, he realises that this is why Alec isn't here.

"Did you really think that I wouldn't find out?" his father asks. Magnus clenches his jaw but doesn't look away, half expecting his father to hit him for his insolence, but his father shakes his head in disappointment. "They're all dead."

For a heart-stopping moment, Magnus thinks he means the Lightwoods, and his father must read it on his face.

"No, just the fool who was working for me who told you too much, his entire family, as well as your little group of rebels," his father says. "You led me straight to them last night, and eventually they told me everything. They were planning to sell the opium back to the Dutch at a higher price, did you know that? Revolution is an expensive business - and opium is worth its weight in gold. They were just using you."

Unfortunately, Magnus finds that he isn't surprised, but he was desperate for allies. Still, all that blood is now on his hands. 

"Were you simply trying to vex me, or did the British boy put you up to this?" 

"It was my idea, he had nothing to do with it," Magnus says immediately. "What have you done to him?" 

"That house at the edge of the forest was infested with rats and cockroaches overnight. They must have been drawn to the stink of rubbish," his father says with a vicious smile. "Maybe next time they won't be so lucky. Maybe next time it will be a fire, or something will happen to that pretty little sister of his. Wouldn't that be a tragedy?"

"You wouldn't dare. They're colonials. The Dutch won't let you get away with it, and I'd help them hunt you down," Magnus snarls, and his father strikes him across the face, hard enough that his eyes water.

"I've turned a blind eye to the company you pick, but no son of mine is going to be a white man's whore," he hisses. "There is more than one way to kill a man. I will make this boy _beg_ for death, and I'd rather kill you myself than let you disgrace me like this."

Magnus knows that it's not an empty threat; his father will not hesitate to destroy Alec and his family completely, and the hopelessness of it all finally chokes the fight out of him more effectively than a hand around his throat. "Of course it always comes back to you. No wonder you've never loved anyone in your life, and nobody has ever loved you," Magnus bites out. Too late, he realises he's said too much. 

"You think this is love?" his father scoffs, then his disdainful expression shifts into a nasty smile. "Fine. Then break his heart, to save his life." 

Magnus sits at his desk, resignation like a cold pit in his gut. He's tried to think of a way out of this, only to find that he always circles back to the realisation that he must do what has to be done. His father is upstairs, waiting and listening, and even if he could tell Alec the truth via some trickery, the truth will only make Alec fight harder to stay by Magnus' side and put him and his family in greater danger. 

He doesn't get up when Alec slips in through the back door. The stark shadows cast by the lamp on his desk will help him hide the bruise that's doubtless blooming on his cheek. Instead, he positions himself in an insouciant slouch and plasters on a smile. 

Alec is a little breathless, like he cycled here as fast as he could. "I'm sorry, I-" 

Once Alec is close enough, Magnus pulls him down into his lap and tugs him by the back of his neck to ravage his mouth. Alec lets out a little sound of surprise but doesn't stop him until Magnus brazenly slides a hand between Alec's legs. 

Alec jerks and pulls away. "Magnus?" 

"I missed having you wake me up today," Magnus murmurs in Alec's ear, low enough that his father can't hear. Even if he has to be cruel, he's not going to let his father witness Alec's humiliation. "Bend over my desk, I want to have you like this. But try to keep your voice down, or you'll wake my guest upstairs."

Alec nearly stumbles in his haste to get off Magnus' lap and away from him. "Guest?"

"Well, you weren't here, and he was offering. He's very good with his mouth. I'll pay him to suck you off later if you want, it's quite the experience," Magnus says with some twisted amusement at claiming it's a prostitute upstairs instead of his father. 

Alec doesn't reply, but Magnus knows how he must feel. He doesn't want to look Alec in the eye and see the heartbreak on Alec's face, but Alec already knows him too well, and Magnus must play this role to the hilt to turn Alec away. 

Magnus steels himself and frowns as he looks up, hiding his own heartbreak with a mask of annoyance. "Well? What are you waiting for?" he demands. 

Thankfully Alec's pride isn't so far gone that he'll take this sort of treatment from Magnus. He takes another step away from Magnus and Magnus sighs, pretending to rub his temples so he has an excuse to look away.

"Just as well. Leave your keys. You don't have to come tomorrow, or ever again."

"What?"

"We've had some good times together, Alexander, and I enjoyed the novelty of being with you, but surely you must realise that you're more trouble for me than you're worth. Don't make this more tedious than it has to be."

A part of Magnus is begging for Alec to realise that he can't possibly be saying all these things of his own volition, that Alec should know that he cares deeply about him and would never hurt him like this, and Magnus feels a thrill that is both desperate fear for Alec and selfish delight when Alec shakes his head, as if trying to shake off Magnus' words. 

"Did something happen?" Alec asks. 

"Alexander, you knew it would come to this eventually. I have a duty to continue my family name, but until then, I just want to enjoy all the pleasures my money can buy," Magnus says brusquely.

"But why now? Magnus, if you're in trouble, or I did something-" 

"My father has made arrangements for me to marry someone, a girl from a good family," Magnus interrupts him in a softer voice. It's not a lie, not exactly. Just a truth that has not come to pass yet. "I've never met her, but I'm sure she is very lovely."

A dead silence falls between them. There's nothing more to say. 

Alec's gaze drops to the floor and he nods curtly, once. "I understand," he says, fishing the keys out of his pocket and placing it on the table, then he turns and walks out of the door without a backward glance or a word of goodbye. 

The door shuts behind him with a soft click, and Alec is gone. 

Magnus' face crumples, almost; his body bows inward with the force of the unbearable ache hollowing out his heart, but he makes himself bear it. He pulls his shoulders back and keeps his back straight before he can reach a point where he can't hold it together, and he forces his eyes wide open, staring blankly at the bright light from the lamp on his desk so the tears can't even start to form in them. His nails dig into his palm and he takes several deep, steady breaths, having perfected the art of not crying over the years. Later he will grieve for what he's done to Alec, to _them_, but he refuses to shed a single tear in front of his father, to give his father that power.

His lips burn with the last kiss he stole from Alec, and the mockery that it made of everything between them.

His father comes down the stairs and looks at him with a strange, thoughtful expression, and Magnus has never hated him as much as he hates him right now. He pauses in front of Magnus' desk as if he wants to say something, then shakes his head and leaves, and alone in the silence of the darkening house, Magnus finally allows himself to fall apart. 

He was wrong, and Alec was right; everything does come with a price. 


	5. Chapter 5

Alec tells his family that he stopped working for Magnus because Magnus has many other more experienced and capable people working for him now, and leaves it at that. Maryse, Jace, and Izzy know that it isn't as simple as it seems, but Max doesn't, and he's perhaps the most disappointed since he thought Magnus was their friend. On his part, Alec throws himself into searching for another job, but it's Jace who lands a job first, completely out of the blue. While running errands for their mother in the part of town too close to Magnus' place for Alec's comfort, one of the children running around on the streets lets out the air from one of his bicycle tyres as a prank, and Jace is forced to stop at a repair shop owned by a Dutchman, who happens to be looking for a shop assistant. Jace thinks he made more of an impression with his new boss's half-Japanese wife, Dorothea, who he says practically twisted her husband's arm to hire him, and of course it doesn't pay as well as Alec's old job, but Alec is happy for Jace. One door opens as another door closes, even if it isn't for him.

Alec picks up discarded newspapers when he sees them in the town, scanning the smudged print for Magnus' name, and breathes a little easier when he finds nothing. Magnus didn't tell him the details of the plans he'd made with his allies in the freedom movement, and it's possible that whatever they planned hasn't happened yet, but surely something would be mentioned in the papers if something had happened to the son of a prominent businessman like Magnus' father.

Despite his unemployment, Alec is determined to be useful and stay busy. Every evening, after a day of unsuccessfully trying to find a job in town, he uses the last remaining hours of daylight to mend the holes in the walls and clean out the stragglers from the rat's nest in the roof that had suddenly fallen on them that day, as well as any pests that have found their way inside their house. They can't have appeared overnight, so Alec must have missed the signs, so distracted by his own stupid feelings that he failed to take care of his family; he promises himself that it won't happen again. 

He's almost done mending the roof, the sky already turning a deep shade of orange, when Jace and Izzy climb up the ladder and quietly help him hold the wooden planks in place while he nails them down. He knows why they're here, but he refuses to be the one to acknowledge it first. In the end, it's Jace who breaks the silence. 

"What happened between you and Magnus?" 

"I told you. I wasn't what he needed anymore," Alec replies.

"Are you and Magnus in trouble?" Izzy asks. "Mother told us that they have been arresting a lot of men lately for... inappropriate relations."

Alec looks sharply at his siblings. He'd suspected that Jace knew, and possibly Izzy, but are they trying to tell him that their mother knows as well?

"You're our brother, nothing could make us turn away from you. You do know that, right?" Izzy says, and Jace nods vehemently. 

Alec hesitates. He wasn't planning on telling anyone anything about what happened with Magnus, but his siblings might decide to confront Magnus about it, and he'd been keeping them away from Magnus even before this because of Magnus' involvement in the freedom movement. 

"I saw the news about the arrests in the papers. They're arresting prominent men for inappropriate relations with underaged prostitutes. I'm not in trouble, and Magnus was fine when I left," he says quietly. He'd briefly considered that Magnus had behaved that way because he was in trouble, but logic had caught up and quashed that foolish thought. Unfortunately, the business that Magnus has gotten involved in is more likely to get him killed on the spot or arrested - he wouldn't have had the luxury of time to warn Alec off.

"Alec, we know there's more going on," Jace insists. "You don't have to deal with it alone."

But how does he even begin to tell them what's gone wrong? Magnus' secrets aren't his to tell, and the fact that he's been sleeping with Magnus and his reasons for doing so aren't the real cause of his misery. 

"I fell in love with Magnus."

It's only when the words are out his mouth that Alec realises the weight of them. It punches the air right out of his lungs, the pain of what he's really lost like a fist around his heart. He closes his eyes and takes a deep shaky breath through his nose; he's been numb since he left Magnus, mostly because he hasn't allowed himself to think about it, but now he's afraid that if he opens his mouth all the emotions he's finally letting himself feel will pour out of him in a scream.

"Oh, Alec," Izzy whispers. Alec doesn't notice he's clenched his hands so hard that his nails are cutting into his palm until she takes his hands in hers. 

"You told him?" Jace asks.

Alec shakes his head. "He guessed it. But it doesn't matter. He's engaged to be married."

"What? And he loves this girl?" Jace asks. 

"No. He's never met her. It was his father's decision."

"But if he has feelings for you as well, he should just break off the engagement. It wouldn't be fair to her," Izzy says. 

"It doesn't work that way here. If he breaks off the engagement, the girl's reputation will be ruined as well. Magnus would never do that," Alec says. 

"And what about what he's doing to _you_? How is that alright?" Izzy says angrily. 

"He's not obliged to feel the same way about me, Izzy," Alec says tiredly. 

And that's the crux of the matter, in the end. Alec knows Magnus well enough to know that Magnus would fight to the death for what he believes in. That Magnus has given up is an answer in itself. 

"He said some things, tried to make himself hateful so that it would be easier for me to leave him, but..." A lump forms in Alec's throat, not from the memory of Magnus' words or behaviour, but from the memory of the moment that Alec realised Magnus was just trying to drive him away - that Magnus had made his choice. "I could never hate him."

"I don't understand. Anyone could see that he cared for you too," Izzy insists. 

Yes, he did, but affection has many shades. Alec knows that most of the hurtful things Magnus said and did were all part of an act, because Magnus isn't a cruel man. In fact, in a way Magnus had been trying to be kind - to swiftly nip in the bud any hope Alec might have had for a future together when he knew that it was impossible, instead of stringing him along. But at least one thing was the truth. 

"I'm more trouble for him than I'm worth," Alec says. 

"_He's_ more trouble than he's worth," Jace says fiercely. "We'll be alright, Alec. We don't need him."

Alec nods to placate his siblings. He doesn't expect them to understand, and it doesn't matter anyway. He's paid off a large part of their remaining debt with the money he earned while he was employed by Magnus, and if he manages to find another job, maybe they'll have enough for the passage back to England by the end of the year. There's nothing left in Batavia to keep them here. 

\--

Alec finds a job a few days later, as a clerk - largely because he can understand Malay, thanks to all those weeks of reading the newspapers to Magnus. Max starts playing truant from school again the day after that.

Alec really should have expected it. They'd had to drop Izzy and Max's Dutch tutor because they couldn't afford it, and with Alec and Jace both out of the house at their new jobs leaving Max unsupervised, Max must have assumed that nobody would discover that he hadn't gone to school. It goes on for a week before the school finally tells them, and Max doesn't come home that evening, probably trying to avoid a tongue-lashing from Maryse. By the time night falls, the Lightwoods are frantic - Max is clever and resourceful, but he's just a boy. Maryse and Izzy leave to search the town, while Alec and Jace venture into the jungle in the backyard of their house. 

They have an oil lamp and a _parang_ blade to hack a path through the dark tangle of strangling vines and overgrown vegetation, but that's nothing against the dangers of the jungle at night. There are packs of roaming wild dogs, snakes, and scorpions, maybe even tigers, and they can barely see where they are going, but fear spurs them on, calling out for their baby brother until their voices are hoarse. In the end, it's Jace who spots a flash of white in the gloom, and they find Max lying unconscious in the rotting leaves and mud - still breathing, but clammy and feverish. 

The doctor pronounces it a case of acute appendicitis. Max will have to be operated on immediately, and the bill is far more than what they can afford. 

Alec hasn't been anywhere near Magnus' shophouse since he left, and he knows he's got no right to come begging for help, but there's very little he wouldn't do for his family. Besides, Magnus cared about Max as well, and no matter what is going on between them, Magnus may still be sympathetic. It's past midnight and the shophouse is dark, but Alec knocks on the door anyway. Should he call out? Is Magnus more likely or less likely to answer the door if he hears his voice? 

Magnus ends his conundrum by answering the door anyway. He looks thinner than Alec remembered even though only a couple of weeks have passed, with dark circles under his eyes, and his suit is rumpled like he'd been sleeping in it. For a moment Magnus stares at Alec like he's seen the ghost of a dearly beloved, a mixture of horror and yearning, and Alec feels a sick kind of hope because Magnus has clearly been as miserable as him.

"You can't be here," Magnus blurts out, sounding almost fearful, before he recovers and his expression hardens. "I told you that I didn't want to see you again."

"Max is in the hospital. I didn't know who else to turn to," Alec says quickly, putting up a hand to stop the door before Magnus can slam it in his face. 

"Of course you're just here for my money," Magnus says with a bitter laugh, stepping back inside the house. Alec follows him inside; there is a strange musky sweet smell in the house that was never there before. 

"I'll pay you back."

"It isn't about the money, Alec," Magnus says coldly. "You can't keep running to me every time you're in trouble. I don't want anything more to do with you or your family."

"Magnus, stop this. Stop pretending you don't care." Alec makes a grab for Magnus' arm, but Magnus jerks out of his reach.

"You mean nothing to me, get _out_!" Magnus snarls. 

Alec finds himself suddenly blindingly furious with Magnus. It's not all Magnus' fault, but it's certainly easier to blame him for both their misery. "Fine," Alec says through gritted teeth. "How much was what we used to do worth?" 

Magnus frowns. "What?" 

"In a brothel. Or if I was one of those prostitutes on the streets," Alec says flatly. "That's all I'm good for, isn't that right?" 

With everything going on, he's forgotten his jacket and his sleeves are rolled up to his elbows. He unclips his suspenders and throws them over the back of a wooden chair with such violence that they fall to the floor, then he yanks his shirt out from where it's tucked in and unbuttons it methodically, keeping his eyes fixed on a rounded part of the carving on the wooden chair the whole time. But when he starts unbuttoning his pants, Magnus makes a soft wounded sound. 

"Alexander, stop. Please," Magnus whispers. 

Alec lets his hands fall to his sides and looks up. Magnus looks devastated, all pretence of nonchalance and cruelty gone. The anger ebbs away as quickly as it came.

"Magnus, I'm sorry," he says, and even as the words leave his mouth he knows how meaningless they are. He's sorry for everything - for pushing, for falling in love and having Magnus fall in love with him, for the reality of their circumstances - but being sorry doesn't change a single goddamned thing.

Magnus doesn't bother himself with pointless apologies. He turns away and pulls off the rings on his fingers, then hesitates only briefly before taking a chain off his neck as well, and leaves them all on a pile on the table.

"That's everything I have," Magnus says. He doesn't look at Alec again before walking swiftly out of the front door. 

\--

Alec pawns all the rings, but he keeps the thin gold chain and the simple pendant hanging off it, a piece of circular jade with a hole through the centre. Combined with what the Lightwoods have they have enough to cover the hospital bill anyway, and Alec has never seen Magnus take this necklace off; even though Alec fully intends to pay back the loan and get back all the rings from the pawnshop when he has enough money, he doesn't want to risk losing this particular piece. Alec wears the chain and pendant around his own neck for safekeeping, planning to give it back to Magnus when he next sees him. With Max safely on the road to recovery, Alec makes it a habit to go back to Magnus' shophouse every evening after work to wait for him, but Magnus doesn't come back. The door remains unlocked as Magnus left it, his letters and things strewn on the desk without Alec to tidy up after him. After a few days, Alec checks the kitchen for perishables and throws the spoilt food away, but he doesn't touch anything otherwise.

He doesn't know what else to do. The last words Magnus said to him, that the few pieces of jewellery he was wearing was all that he had, has struck fear into Alec's heart. Something has gone horribly wrong, and Alec had fallen for Magnus' trick and left him to face it all alone. 

A few weeks later, it's all over the newspapers - a prominent businessman arrested for importing illegal opium, all his assets seized, and his only son reported as missing. Seemingly unrelated, a row of shophouses in town mysteriously goes up in flames in the middle of the night. 

Alec doesn't cry; to grieve would be to admit that Magnus is gone. He makes plans to take the next train to Magelang, reasoning that Magnus might have some childhood friends he could have taken refuge with, but Jace comes to him just as he's packing. 

"I know where he is," Jace says, looking a little disbelieving himself. 

Alec doesn't let himself believe it either, not yet. The staircase in Jace's boss's shophouse is somewhat similar to the one in the shophouse Magnus lived in - barely wide enough for one person, dark, the wood creaking under his feet. Alec hears someone coughing upstairs, and a horrible retching sound. The lady of the house - Dorothea - leads Alec to the small spare room at the back and calls out something in Javanese through the closed door before opening it for him. 

Alec thanks her as she leaves to give them some privacy, but he stops right at the doorway, not going in just yet. The room reeks of the sour stench of sickness but it isn't enough to mask that strange sweet smell that Alec observed before. If this were a dream, Alec would have dreamt of Magnus looking healthy and well, and never with such an expression of wretched hope on his face. Alec approaches Magnus' bedside cautiously, unsure if Magnus will try to drive him away again, but Magnus just watches him with wide eyes. 

"Alexander, I'm so sorry," Magnus croaks out, then starts coughing again. Alec suddenly realises that the sweet smell emanates from Magnus' breath, but it mustn't be anything good if it's making Magnus sick. 

Alec perches on the edge of the bed, patting his back soothingly until the coughing fit passes, and tentatively puts a hand on Magnus' forehead to check if he has a fever, but Magnus pushes it away gently. 

"It's the opium," he admits. 

"_What_?" 

"It's a long story, about a very foolish man. Do you want to hear it?" Magnus asks softly. 

Alec helps Magnus sip from a cup of water, and between coughing fits, Magnus tells him everything - about his father's threats, then of him starting to frequent his father's opium dens. He did it out of despair but also out of anger; his father loves nothing except himself and the things he owns, and to him, Magnus is just a thing in his possession, so to hurt himself is to hurt his father. Eventually his father threw him out of his own dens and cut him off, making sure he had no more money for poisoning himself, and that was when Alec saw him last. So Magnus had gone straight to the source, to all the illegal suppliers he'd found out about before, who were only too happy to have a hold over Magnus' father, and Magnus had let them think they had him in their clutches, setting himself up as bait so the Dutch authorities could arrest them all in one fell swoop - leaving Magnus destitute and addicted to the poison that he's loathed all his life.

By the end of Magnus' tale, Alec is speechless, just clutching Magnus' hands in his; there's a tremor in them and he's so thin that the bones of his wrist jut out. He was right, Magnus is a fighter, and he's wrecked his own body and burned his old life to ashes to keep Alec and his family safe while Alec thought he didn't care. 

"I shouldn't have left. I should have known you were in trouble."

"I guess I'm a better actor than I thought," Magnus says with a wan smile. "I wasn't sure you'd come."

Alec shakes his head. "Magnus, I only left because you said you were engaged. I never believed the rest of it."

Magnus' smile grows a little brighter, and he lifts a shaky hand to Alec's cheek to wipe away a tear Alec hadn't even noticed shedding. "I didn't care what I was doing to myself at first because thought I had already lost you, so I had nothing left to lose. Then I realised that you still didn't hate me after all the things I'd said and done, and I couldn't help hoping. You gave me something to come back to, Alexander. But I must confess I didn't plan beyond this."

"You have nothing to worry about," Alec says, undoing the clasp of the chain around his neck and placing it back around Magnus' neck where it belongs. "Let's go home."


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late update, holidays and all, a lot of things going on :)

The first week is the worst. Magnus refuses to take any more opium, even though weaning himself off it gradually would have been a less painful process. At first it just makes him very ill, then he begins to see and hear things that aren't there. (Magnus doesn't remember anything about the days he lost to the fever and delirium, but Max tattles when he sneaks into the room to visit Magnus, and tells him that he'd shouted something about his father and tried to fight Alec off when Alec had tried to calm him down.) But the fever eventually breaks, and with it the worst of the symptoms start to abate.

He doesn't have much appetite for food, but he forces himself to finish whatever Alec offers him anyway. He's never been able to stay in bed when he's ill but he listens to his body's limits for once. The Lightwood house isn't very big; Isabelle and Maryse share a room, Jace and Max share a room, and now Magnus shares a room with Alec, with Magnus taking the bed and Alec sleeping on a thin mattress on the floor in the furthest corner of the room. Recovery is an exhausting process, both physically and mentally - Magnus finds himself waking up after a few scant hours of fitful sleep craving for a smoke of _anything_, even if it's just a normal cigarette to distract himself from the other more pressing craving, but he has a feeling that it'll be a slippery slope back into addiction. 

On sleepless nights, he holds the jade pendant Alec kept safe for him like a talisman, tracing the shape of it in the darkness. It was a good luck charm from his mother, and he's been wearing it since he was an infant, probably even used to chew it when he was teething. For the longest time, he wore it in memory of her and as a reminder that there had been someone in his life once who had loved him unconditionally. Now, perhaps there are are two, he thinks, smiling slightly as Alec snores gently in the same room.

Magnus can be very stubborn when he wants to be, but even then he finds himself wavering on days when he thinks about how much of a burden he's being to everyone around him. He hadn't been sure of his welcome at the Lightwoods, especially from Maryse, but Dorothea was a dear childhood friend, and he hadn't wanted to bring more trouble to her, especially since she had already done him a huge favour in hiring Jace on his recommendation. He had gone home with Alec because it would have been unthinkable not to, but when in the throes of pain and exhaustion, he starts questioning everything - whether this sacrifice was worth it, and whether Alec will eventually come to regret taking him in when the guilt and pity is worn thin by the trouble Magnus has brought him. 

(But those are the bad days, and the answers that come to him on the good days are the ones he tries to hold onto. The answer to the first question is yes, of course it was worth it, because he didn't just do it for Alec but also for himself. Which leads to the answer to the second question, that even if Alec tires of having to take care of him it wouldn't be his fault because Magnus has never expected Alec to pay the price for his own decisions.)

Unfortunately, the trouble he has brought the Lightwoods is far from over. Dorothea had concealed the news of the fire from him - if he had known he wouldn't have sought shelter with either of them at all. It means there are still people out there who want him dead or at least wanted to vent their frustrations on him, although they may not have the resources or inclination to persist in the hunt for him. It makes him wonder if putting his father in prison wasn't enough to free him from his father's clutches. Magnus had planned to find a job when he recovered, or perhaps start some small business, but now he fears he may have to leave the country entirely, with England being the most ideal, of course. Although the thought of uprooting himself completely and possibly never coming back is daunting, it fills Magnus with purpose. At least he has a future to plan for now, not just a future he will have to resign himself to and resent his father for.

The good days start to be more common than the bad days. Magnus' strength and appetite returns, and although he is forced to stay in the Lightwood house to lay low, he can still make himself useful with light household chores and with tutoring Max and Isabelle. Jace picks up an old discarded radio and Magnus begins to try to fix it in his spare time, with Isabelle and Max asking him a million questions about what all the parts are for while Magnus grits his teeth and tries to stop his hands from shaking.

Magnus is in the kitchen helping Maryse chop up the vegetables for dinner when Maryse clears her throat purposefully. Magnus stops, bracing himself for an unpleasant conversation. She has been noticeably cooler to him, and he doesn't blame her for it - he suspects that her children fought bitterly to get her to agree to let him stay.

"I'm glad that you seem to be feeling better. Alec told me what you did, to try to keep us and Alec safe, and I want to thank you for that," Maryse says.

"Even if you wouldn't have been in danger if it wasn't for me?" Magnus asks lightly.

Maryse doesn't answer that, but she's clearly trying to pick her next words very carefully. "Every parent hopes that their child will have a good life, an easy life. I think your father and I might have agreed on one thing, at least - even with Alec's proclivities, if it had been up to me, you would have been my last choice of a partner for my son," she tells him frankly. "I hope you understand that it's not a reflection on you. You seem like a fine young man, and with all the troubles with your father behind you, I'm sure you have a bright future ahead of you." 

Magnus tries not to feel disappointed - she's not being unreasonable, and he does understand. "You don't approve of us because you think Alec and I are too different."

To his surprise, Maryse rests a hand lightly on his arm and he looks up at her to find her smiling. "There will always be differences. It will not be easy, but what is easy doesn't necessarily guarantee happiness, and unlike your father, I know it is not _my_ choice that matters. Since Alec has decided that you are his happiness, I will stand by his choice."

For once, words escape him. It's too good to be true. Alec is close to his family, and even if his mother doesn't terrorise her children like Magnus' father did, loving bonds are stronger than fear and hate. Her disapproval and Alec's reluctance to disappoint her would have made things difficult, if not impossible, even though Magnus had been prepared to do whatever it took to prove himself worthy for Alec.

"You will be coming with us when we return to England?" Maryse asks.

Alec hasn't even mentioned it, but Magnus nods immediately - it's surreal how everything suddenly seems to be falling into place. 

"It will be for the best," Maryse says, turning back to the bean-sprouts she's cleaning. "Things will be better for all of us there."

It's just a thing people say when even the unknown future seems a little better than what they have now, to give themselves a bit of hope, but that she has included Magnus in her hopes for the future of her family so readily means more to him than he has words for.

"Thank you," Magnus finally tells her. It doesn't feel like enough, but Maryse just pats his arm and smiles.

But as the sun sets, Magnus' relief fades and unease grows. Alec has been caring and attentive since he brought Magnus home, but even though Magnus has told Alec all the facts of what transpired after his father tried to come between them, they've never properly cleared the air about everything before that, and they have not spoken about the future either. The more he thinks about it, the more he wonders if maybe Alec didn't mention going back to England for another reason. That night, after the lights are out, Magnus finds himself lying in the dark tracing the shape of his pendant absently. Alec isn't asleep either; he knows because Alec isn't snoring.

"Is everything alright?" Alec finally asks. "You always do that on the bad nights."

Magnus' hands still, and he sits up slowly in bed. "Your mother spoke to me today, about going back to England, but you've never mentioned it to me."

Alec sits up from his thin mattress on the floor, which Magnus guiltily thinks must be rather uncomfortable. "I wasn't sure if you would want to go. What about the independence movement?" 

"I hate to admit it, but father was right about them. They're not interested in getting rid of the opium dens, especially not since most of the addicts are Chinese. There's no point fighting for their vision when people like me have no place in it," Magnus says quietly. "But if I still want to stay here?" 

"Then I'll stay here, with you," Alec says matter-of-factly. "I agreed to the plans to go back to England some time ago, even before Max was ill. Things have changed."

"Why would you do that for me?" Magnus asks sadly. "I took advantage of you when all you wanted to do was find a proper job to provide for your family."

"Magnus, you didn't-" Alec blurts out, already getting to his feet and moving towards Magnus on instinct. In a few quick steps, he's right by Magnus' side, settling tentatively next to him on the edge of the bed. "All the things that we did, I wanted it too," Alec says, his voice getting a little husky. "I thought you knew that."

Magnus shakes his head wordlessly; between things that were true but weren't said, and things that were said that weren't true, everything is muddled now. "Why me?" he whispers into the darkness.

"You know why. Because you're kind, and brave, and generous - but it's all of these things and none of them as well," Alec replies. Magnus can see Alec struggling to find more words, but in the end Alec just takes one of his hands in his, lifting it to his face, and presses a kiss into Magnus' palm. Magnus closes his eyes, trying to hold on to the bright point of something immutable between them that feels so clear in this moment. 

"Magnus, I-"

Magnus puts a finger to Alec's lips. He has to be the one to say this first, to soothe the hurt he caused with the lies Alec claims he didn't believe.

"_Aku tresno sliramu_, Alexander," Magnus says softly.

Javanese is his mother's language, not so much his father's, and he knows Alec doesn't really understand but some words cannot be properly conveyed in a borrowed tongue, cannot mean what they truly mean to him unless voiced in the first language he learned to speak. But it doesn't matter - Alec may not understand the language, but understands Magnus. Alec's eyes are bright with tears and his voice cracks a little when he replies, but he's smiling as he presses another kiss into Magnus' palm. 

"I love you, too, Magnus."

\--

Magnus writes to Ragnor immediately. He's eager to let his best friend know that he may get to see him again soon, of course, but there are so many things that they need to prepare before they can all make the trip to England, and he hopes Ragnor will be able to help them as a trusted middle man in things such as finding a place to stay.

Alec moves his mattress right next to the bed, closer but still separate - they're living under Alec's mother's roof, after all, and some propriety must be observed. Besides, they have time to take things slow now, and both of them want to do things the right way. Even if there is no way for them to be married in the eyes of the law, Magnus plans to buy a ring for Alec when he has money of his own, probably after they move to England. All that matters is that there is an understanding between them, and that their relationship is acknowledged by their friends and family. 

The fixing of the radio has become a family effort. Magnus has cannibalised whatever he can of the existing wiring and parts, but it's still missing a few pieces before it'll be in working order, so Jace and Alec are tasked with looking out for parts to scavenge when they're in town.

There's great excitement in the Lightwood house when the radio finally crackles to life. It takes a while, but they find a station that broadcasts in English, and for an afternoon the house is filled with music and laughter as Jace, Magnus, and Max take turns asking Maryse and Isabelle to dance a measure with them. Alec doesn't join in, but the way he smiles while he watches them dance makes Magnus wish he had a camera to capture this moment forever.

By the time the music stops, Magnus' lungs are tight and he's wheezing and breathless but his heart is so full. He sits next to Alec as the news comes on, and everybody's expressions grow grim as the newscaster talks about Germany and Italy's growing ambition and the unrest in the other side of the world; their joy and laughter from barely five minutes ago sputters out and Magnus suddenly feels cold. In Batavia, the local papers have concentrated on Japan, but in a positive light - Magnus knows that the independence movement sees the Japanese as allies against the colonials. 

"Does this mean that we're not going back to England after all?" Max asks with wide eyes, having sat though the news with all of them. 

Nobody answers him. The war will probably reach England first, while there's a chance that the Japanese will not reach Batavia at all. But if they do come, with the Lightwoods being colonials and Magnus' father having regularly donated considerable amounts of money to China's war efforts against the Japanese, all of them would be in much greater danger. It may be ages yet before war breaks out, but it looks likely to be inevitable, and they will have to make a decision soon before it becomes impossible to obtain passage away from Java at all. (They can't afford it yet, but they'll think of something.) Alec has gone very quiet; Magnus wishes he could take Alec's hand in his, but it wouldn't be proper, not with Alec's family around them.

That night, they talk about maybe moving to the countryside, away from the towns, if they can't get to England. If they can get to England somehow, Alec wants to go back to school, and Magnus thinks he might be able to get a job as an engineer. The future ahead of them has become even more of an uncertainty, but all through the night the future is all they talk about. Sometimes thinking about how impossible happiness is, is exactly what kills all possibility of it in the future.

A week later, on 1 September 1939, Germany invades Poland. Two days later, Britain declares war on Germany, officially committing India and the Crown colonies, as well as all British subjects, to the war.

They know it's only a matter of time before Alec and Jace receive their draft notices, but it still guts Magnus when the letters come three days before Alec's nineteenth birthday. 


	7. Chapter 7

On Alec's birthday, they have a small dinner celebration with Alec's favourite food as well as Jace's favourite food. Alec and Jace both try to keep their family's spirits up, but it's hard to pretend anything is alright. (Nobody cries, at least not in front of them, but Max's eyes have been red and swollen for days.) Tomorrow they'll have to leave for a training base not too far away - not in familiar Melaka like they'd hoped, but at the British Empire's most important military and trade centre in the East, an island called Singapore - and their bags are already packed and waiting. It's just training, to equip them with the skills needed to survive, and they have all heard the claims that Singapore is an unassailable fortress, the "Gibraltar of the East". It's not the same as going to the frontline, or at least that's what Alec tells himself. He's not interested in glory, or being lauded as a hero. He just wants to keep his head down, keep Jace out of trouble, survive this, and come home to his family.

It's not that he isn't afraid, but there's nothing to be done about it. Alec has no choice but to go, and he'll do what he can to come back - everything that happens in between leaving and coming home he'll just have to figure out when the time comes. Fear for himself is a formless shape, and it's hard to be truly afraid of what you don't know to expect, but Alec's worry for his loved ones is more coherent and present. He's leaving his mother, sister, and baby brother to fend for themselves in a situation that will become increasingly uncertain, and Magnus' health still isn't what it used to be even though he's eating and sleeping much better. Magnus' silence worries him the most - Magnus has been too calm since Alec received the draft notice, and Magnus never gives up without a fight.

When they get ready for bed after the sombre birthday dinner, Magnus takes off the pendant around his neck. 

"Alexander, I want you to have this."

"What? Magnus, I can't take it. You said your mother gave it to you."

"It's supposed to bring the wearer luck and protection. I want you to have it."

"What if I lose it?" 

"If losing it is the price I have to pay for you to come home safely, it's a price I'll gladly pay," Magnus says, then lets out a bitter laugh. "Isn't that how it works? You don't believe in gods until you need to bargain with them - take this precious thing, and this, and this - whatever it takes, as long as you keep my love safe."

Alec's heart aches as he sits on the bed next to Magnus and gently closes Magnus' hand with the pendant still in his palm before covering his hand with his. "Keep it. I'll be fine."

"What if I volunteered?" Magnus asks impulsively. "The Dutch and the English are allies. We would be fighting on the same side. Or I could volunteer for the local army in Singapore, they might take me."

"No! Magnus, please." Alec's grip tightens, fear spiking for the first time since he realised he was going to have to go off to be a soldier in a war he didn't ask to fight. "You know they wouldn't put us in the same company, we might not even be allowed to mingle, and you've not recovered fully from the opium. Magnus, I can't have you somewhere out there, I need to know that you're safe."

Magnus doesn't answer, and Alec knows his grip on Magnus' hands is so tight it probably hurts, but he can't help it. 

"Jace will be with me, I won't be alone. Magnus, promise me you won't do anything rash," Alec insists, taking in the stubborn set of Magnus' jaw, the way he refuses to meet Alec's eyes.

"Only if you promise me you'll come back to me. I'll wait for you, for as long as it takes," Magnus finally says. 

"What if I-" Alec stops himself, and takes a deep, shuddering breath. "This war won't be won overnight, I might be gone for a long time. It wouldn't be fair to ask you to wait."

Magnus shakes his head and smiles sadly at him. "Then don't be gone too long," he says softly. 

Alec lets out a sound that's somewhere between a sob and a laugh, and moves towards Magnus without thinking to kiss him on the lips. They haven't kissed like this since that last time when Magnus was trying to drive Alec away, and for a moment, Alec wonders if Magnus will stop him; maybe he'll say that it doesn't have to be now, that they can wait until Alec is back. But they both know that they're living on stolen time, and even if doing this right now when Alec is about to leave makes the parting even harder, the thought of not even having this last time together is infinitely worse. Magnus' lips part for him as readily as always, his arms coming up to pull Alec closer, and Alec feels the heat swooping in his gut when Magnus pulls him down gently onto the bed. 

It's strange, doing this in the dark instead of the heat and glare of the afternoon. They have to be quiet here, but it's almost impossible with the way Magnus moans and arches under him, his legs wrapped around Alec's waist and his hands roaming every inch of Alec's body like he's trying to memorise some hidden language written in his skin. Alec can't stop kissing Magnus; the warmth and taste of his skin and the sounds he makes when Alec runs his tongue over the pulse point at his neck are more potent than any drug. Their cocks are trapped between their bodies, but neither of them make a move to relieve the desire to touch; maybe if they suspend themselves in this moment of wanting, time will not move forward. But Alec can feel Magnus' heart pounding in his chest in time with his own, even their traitorous hearts counting away the seconds that they have together.

"Magnus, I want..." Alec murmurs into the crook of Magnus' neck, but he can't bring himself to say it. Instead, he guides Magnus' hand lower, lower, gasping when the tip of Magnus' finger brushes across his entrance. 

"Are you sure?" Magnus asks. 

"I'm sure," Alec replies. One more time, possibly one last time, but neither of them say it out loud.

Alec doesn't have the necessary things, so Magnus has to go slow. He gets Alec on all fours then moves behind him and spreads him, and Alec shivers despite the heat of the night when Magnus kisses him right on his entrance. Then he feels Magnus' tongue licking across his hole, hot and wet, and he buries his face in the pillow to stop himself from crying out. They've never done something like this in all the weeks that they slept together, and Alec isn't prepared for how good it feels to have Magnus work him open on his tongue - something that should feel depraved and forbidden transformed into an act of intimate trust and tenderness. Magnus alternates between kisses, licks, and flicks, a sweet torment that makes Alec claw at the thin cotton sheets and leaves him so boneless from the pleasure that his body offers no resistance when Magnus pushes the first finger into him.

Even though it's been a while since Alec has done this, it's just a matter of remembering how to relax when Magnus pushes in, the way he taught himself before. Magnus prepares him carefully, using a mixture of spit and the wetness from Alec's own cock to smooth the way, and even though it stings a little bit more than usual, Magnus eventually has Alec stretched around three fingers, his other hand stroking Alec's cock hanging hard and heavy between his legs. 

"Magnus, please. _Please_," Alec gasps out, and bites down on a whine when Magnus pulls his fingers out. 

Magnus rolls him onto his back, and Alec has a moment of déjà vu. It feels like their first time again even though it's dark all around them, but Alec's heart is pounding from anticipation, not fear. Magnus spits into his palm, spreads the wetness on his own cock, then guides the head into the dip of Alec's entrance. 

"Tell me if it hurts," Magnus whispers, and presses in. 

Alec has missed this. It hurts just a little, but the pleasure far outweighs the discomfort, and Magnus has prepared Alec thoroughly. He rocks gently into Alec until Alec has taken every inch of him, his body and heart both so full of Magnus. Magnus is buried to the hilt inside him, but it's not enough; he still wants him closer, even closer. Magnus' weight on him is solid and real, and even though in the gloom he can see the strange sharpness of Magnus' cheekbones and the vestiges of the damage the opium has wracked on him, Magnus is still the most beautiful man he has ever seen.

"Alexander?" 

Alec can't find the words to answer him, so he just pulls him down to kiss him.

Magnus starts to move, and Alec's body clings to Magnus' cock as if protesting the emptiness it leaves behind; then Magnus thrusts back into him, and they both moan softly. They find that rhythm that is so familiar, and for a while time stops and Alec forgets everything else in the obliterating pleasure, just taking what Magnus gives him. There is a frenetic energy between them now, and swelling heat, Magnus taking him harder and faster until the bed creaks and the darkness of the room is filled with grunts and moans and the sounds of their bodies moving together. Alec wraps a hand around his own cock and wills himself to keep his eyes open, so he can see the expression on Magnus' face in the moment that he thrusts in deep and fills Alec completely, grinding his hips into Alec as he finally falls over the edge. 

"_Magnus_," Alec moans, his hand moving faster as he feels the warmth of Magnus' release blooming inside his body, then he claps his other hand over his own mouth and comes with a muffled cry. 

Time rushes back in. 

He should move, but he can't. When Magnus comes back to bed from cleaning them up, Alec can't find the will to move away from Magnus, so they curl up in the bed that is too small for both of them, watching the black sky gradually lighten into blue. Today is the day he leaves.

"Magnus, I can't sleep," Alec finally chokes out.

"Shhh," Magnus murmurs, and starts singing softly. "_Cep menenga, aja pijer nangis. Tresnoku sing ayu rupane..._"

As the sun rises, Alec falls asleep to Magnus singing him a lullaby in a language he doesn't understand.

\--

Magnus goes to the docks with the rest of the Lightwoods in a haze of pain. He knows that he stands out in their company, but he doesn't care about the odd looks he gets and neither do they. Why does it matter what other people think when Alec is holding himself in so hard that Magnus' heart is already in pieces, and the bleak expressions on the faces of everyone in this little family that has become his own only make his heart break all over again for them?

The ship is just stopping here briefly before it continues its journey to Singapore, and there are other pale, haunted faces on the ship, boys being sent to a war they didn't start. It is a ghost ship and Alec and Jace are bound for it, and there is nothing Magnus can do to stop it from happening.

Alec says goodbye to his siblings and mother very quietly, hugging them so tightly that his knuckles turn white. Alec comes to him last, and Magnus isn't expecting Alec to hug him in public, but he does - crushing him in his arms so hard that the breath Magnus was holding in comes out in a gasp that would have been a sob if Magnus didn't have so much practice with not crying.

"Keep them safe for me," Alec says, but Magnus hears his words for what they truly mean - stay out of it, don't join the war. He knows Alec's reasons are sound, but Magnus' heart doesn't want to listen to reason. 

Alec holds him even tighter. "Magnus, promise me. Give me something to come back to. Please."

He could lie, but he can't bring himself to. There have already been too many lies told between them, well-meaning or not. 

"I promise," Magnus finally replies, and Alec's shoulders relax immediately. 

They hold on to each other just a little bit longer and Magnus feels a slight dampness from Alec's tears seeping into his shirt.

"I love you," Alec whispers.

"I love you, too," Magnus whispers back, and then Alec is gone.

Magnus and the rest of the Lightwoods stand there waving long after the faces of Alec and Jace are white blurs on the deck, on the off chance that they can still see them there, then until the ship is out of sight. The jade pendant bearing all of Magnus' love and desperate hope goes with Alec, worn close to his heart. 

\--

They get through the next few months because they have to. One day at a time, in a constant limbo of waiting for any sort of news. Alec and Jace write home as soon as they get to the training camp, promising them that everything is fine, and the letters ease all of their hearts a little even if Magnus is sure that neither of them would actually tell them if anything was wrong. 

With Alec and Jace's generous salary from their enlistment, the Lightwoods now have enough for the voyage back to England, but Maryse and Magnus agree to stay in Batavia so that they'll be close to Singapore. At the worst case, they could move to Magelang or somewhere else in Java away from the big towns to hide it out, the situation in Europe having become untenable. Magnus gets a job under an assumed name, and for a while everything is bearable.

Magnus' birthday according to the lunar calendar falls on 16 December that year. Alec sends a private letter that is just for Magnus in addition to the one he usually writes to the whole family, and the two Lightwood brothers send along a photograph of both of them dressed smartly in full uniform. They've both put on bulk and muscle, the food in the barracks obviously more plentiful than what they had here, and they're very tanned now, hair shorn almost to their scalps, and standing stiff and proper with a soldier's bearing. Jace's expression is so serious for once that Magnus can barely recognise him. Alec hasn't said anything in his letters, but Magnus notices a stripe on the arm of Alec's uniform, indicating that he's been promoted, and even though joining the army wasn't something Alec had ever wanted, Magnus can't help but feel proud of him. Magnus has never celebrated Christmas, not even when he was studying in England because Ragnor had gone home to be with his family, but he can't help but feel the pall of gloom that overcomes the Lightwoods when the festive season draws near. They celebrate the Chinese New Year with him as well for his sake, but the mood is similarly pensive.

He starts catching fleeting glimpses of a black car - always out of the corner of his eye, always gone before he can take a better look at it.

The radio in the Lightwood house is always on, and for now the news about the war is a mix of good and bad, but Magnus can feel the war sweeping its way towards them and he is starting to feel that they have been cornered - the Lightwoods are outsiders here, which makes them vulnerable. He made a promise to Alec that he would protect his family, but even if he gave up his life for them it wouldn't be enough to protect them from the horrors that are coming. Magnus sees the fall of the Netherlands to Germany weeks before it happens, but nothing can prepare anyone for the chaos that follows.

"We have to leave Batavia," Maryse finally announces.

"But what about Alec and Jace? We can't leave them behind!" Izzy protests. "Magnus, surely you don't agree to this?"

Magnus doesn't answer her. There's no way a mere colony will be able to defend itself, and he intends to keep the promise he made even if it means leaving Alec and Jace behind. Alec would agree. "There is no way to get passage to England, I checked. All the ships are booked to full capacity, and there's no way to get on one unless we bribe the captains," Magnus tells Maryse.

The sound of a car's engine rumbles outside, and they all get to their feet. Dorothea, being half Japanese, was arrested and taken away by the Dutch police the day before, when news of Germany's successful invasion of the Netherlands reached Batavia, and even if her friendship with Magnus was not common knowledge, Jace used to work for her. But instead of knocking on the door, someone kicks it in. Magnus puts himself between the intruders and the Lightwoods immediately, with Maryse shielding her children, and fear lances through him when his father steps into the house surrounded by his thugs. 

"I'll come quietly. Don't hurt them," Magnus says, taking a step towards his father. 

"No!" To his surprise, Maryse grabs him by the wrist and attempts to shove him behind her with the rest of her children. 

"Mrs Lightwood, it's fine-" Magnus begins, but Maryse barely glances at him, all her ferocity directed at Magnus' father. 

"Stay away from my son," she says sharply. 

"_Your_ son?" his father says. He looks from Maryse to Magnus with a frown, then elects to ignore Maryse completely. At a signal from him, his thugs close in. "Come with me," he barks at Magnus.

"Where are you taking him?" Max blurts out fearfully. "He doesn't want to go with you!" 

"He's not a thing for you to own, he's a _person_, and you're a horrible father!" Izzy chimes in. 

Magnus shushes Max and Izzy hurriedly but they've already attracted his father's attention. He turns to them with murder in his eyes, but something about the way Max and Izzy are clinging onto Magnus stops him.

"I wish to speak to my son. In private," he says calmly.

Magnus follows his father out of the house, and his father's henchmen obediently retreat to the car, giving them a measure of privacy. Magnus doesn't know when or how he got out of prison, but clearly he has underestimated his father. He keeps his back straight and head high under his father's scrutiny; he's been afraid of his father all his life, but that fear is a power his father has over him that he refuses to give him anymore. 

"What do you want?" Magnus asks.

"Where is your jade pendant? The one your mother gave you," his father asks. 

"I gave it to Alexander," Magnus replies defiantly, daring his father to say something about him giving away the one thing he had from his mother.

"This boy you loved - he may not return, and even if he does, he will not be the same person you thought you fell in love with. War changes a person."

"The man I still love," Magnus corrects him through gritted teeth. "And of course he's coming back." 

His father shakes his head in disappointment, but to Magnus' surprise, he says, "There is a ship leaving for England tomorrow, the _Empress of Japan_. Tell them that you are my son, and you will be granted passage - the captain owes me a favour. Take them with you, if that's what it takes to convince you to leave this wretched place."

That is the last image Magnus has of his father - the tall, proud figure walking back to his black car, then a glimpse of his face etched with deep lines of regret before he leans back against the seat, out of sight again.

Magnus and the rest of the Lightwood family sail away on the _Empress of Japan_ the next day, leaving Batavia behind forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The lullaby Magnus sings to Alec is titled "_Lelo Ledung_" and the lyrics go "Please hush, don't cry, my child with the beautiful face" (except that I changed it to "my love"). There's also a verse about growing up to become a brave warrior and good person, and coming home with honour to his family. (You can listen to it [here](https://www.mamalisa.com/mp3/lelo_ledung2.mp3).)


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Some mention of the horrors of war and war atrocities in this chapter.

The spray that comes off the sea is cold, and Alec feels the wind in his bones. He stands on the deck of the ship, looking forward to the sight of a country he barely remembers. 

Alec was officially enlisted to the 3rd Battalion stationed at Fortress Singapore on 16 September 1939, as part of the British anti-aircraft artillery regiment. He's not very sure what day it is today - time has a habit of blurring together after the years he spent as a prisoner-of-war, and being confined to this ship for almost two months on his journey back to England isn't helping - but he knows it's some time in late November, and the year is 1945. He's just turned twenty-five, a young man who still has a whole life ahead of him, except that it doesn't feel that way right now; he's lived a hundred lifetimes it seems, and while he's grateful that he survived and that he's on the way home to his family, he can't bring himself to think too far into the future just yet.

Alec knows he's one of the lucky ones, he and Jace. They were both allocated to the same unit, so they didn't have to face their new situation alone. The first few years had been difficult but not unbearable, not even after Magnus and the rest of the Lightwoods fled to England. Alec and Jace had written and received plenty of letters from their loved ones, assuring them that all was well at home, and Magnus had ended every letter to Alec with "ATS" - _aku tresno sliramu_ \- signing off with only an "M" in case anyone guessed what it meant. Bombers would come occasionally, and although Alec has never had to fight an enemy soldier fist to fist or shoot them when he's close enough to see their faces, he will forever associate the acrid stink of burning gunpowder with the deafening boom of an anti-aircraft gun and the sick lurching nausea of watching a dark green Japanese "Nell" bomber plane with a rising sun painted on its side drop from the sky. Even then, they had been told that Singapore was safe, and that the Japanese forces were weak and would never get through the impenetrable jungles of Malaya.

But the Japanese forces hadn't been weak and Singapore hadn't been the unassailable fortress their superiors had boasted it was, and when the enemy finally came in full force, Singapore had been surrendered to the Japanese within a week.

He doesn't want to think about the three-and-a-half years that followed. Alec had been promoted to the rank of sergeant by then, and his height and build had made him a target, even though he'd tried to keep his head down and swallow his pride. The Japanese soldiers had liked Jace, though, who had picked up enough Japanese from Dorothea to be useful to them, and gradually the Japanese guards had noticed Alec's quiet command over his men and their loyalty to him, and decided that it was easier to leave him alone since Alec wasn't causing any trouble. A few months later, Alec and Jace had been shipped out to work on the railway linking Siam and Burma, and that was when their real nightmare had begun. They had been starved, beaten, and forced to work long hours under the scorching sun. They should have been allowed communication with their families but Alec suspects that the Japanese guards simply threw all the letters away. Still, they'd been incredibly lucky - when Jace had come down with a fever from an infected ulcer, they'd made friends with a Dutch doctor from Batavia who had cured Jace with wild medicinal plants scrounged from the jungle, and the locals had tried to sneak morsels of food and drink to them at great personal risk. Having grown up in the tropics, Alec and Jace were accustomed to the heat, so they'd fallen sick less often than the other Allied prisoners. Unfortunately, they'd been separated after the railway had been completed - Jace had been shipped off to Japan, while Alec had been amongst the prisoners tasked with maintaining the railway. For two years after that, Alec had been alone, but maybe that was what had helped him survive in the end. He couldn't worry about Jace - his brother had been taken, and it was out of his hands. Every morning, his only thought was getting through the day, and every night he kept his mind blank of everything except the determination to wake up to see another day, then another - one foot in front of the other, as long as he was still capable of breathing. 

He doesn't want to think about it but it isn't really a choice. He's had to watch men dig their own graves with trembling hands and soil themselves while kneeling in front of the shallow hole awaiting their executions. He's had to endure years of sleeping in dark enclosed spaces surrounded by the stench of hundreds of unwashed bodies and putrefying wounds, and the flies, god, the_ flies_. He sees dead faces bleared with blood and mud even when he's awake. Many, many men have died, and Alec has only known a few of them, but he's known them in the way you only get to know someone when you've had to share a raw snake with them because you're both that desperate but you wouldn't dream of hogging it all to yourself either, and known them in the way you only get to know someone when you've watched them stop eating their meagre share of watery rice porridge altogether so that they'll finally be free. 

(It's not the kind of freedom Alec has ever craved, though. Someone waits for him on the other side of the world.)

He doesn't want to think about it but he won't do them the disservice of trying to forget - he lives while they died, not because he did anything special or heroic, but just because of sheer dumb luck. The least he can do is remember, and maybe he'll try to write it down so that others will remember, too. 

When the war ended, Alec had been a walking skeleton, too ill to risk the long voyage home, so he'd been moved to a hospital. While he was recovering, they told him that they'd found Jace in a mining camp near Nagasaki, and he's probably already home or on the way home. Max is still one year shy of being drafted, but Izzy had been sent her draft notice two years ago. She's still in active service in the civil defence, but from the one letter he received before he set sail for home (a letter he's read and re-read so many times even though he already knows it by heart), his mother assured him that his siblings are safe. As for Magnus, he kept his promise to Alec to look after his family but as Alec had expected, he hadn't been able to stay out of the war completely because that wouldn't be Magnus. Magnus' old friend Ragnor had recruited him for a classified military intelligence project in Bletchley Park which he can't talk much about, but he's safe too.

Alec looks out over the water and sees land in the distance. A wave of excited murmurs rises around him, rising gradually as the word spreads. He gets to go home today - not the foreign soil that he will soon feel underneath his feet but to his loved ones waiting anxiously for him on the docks. 

The ship Alec is on is named the _Empress of Scotland_; Alec doesn't know this, but in a previous life, it was named the _Empress of Japan_. 

It is raining by the time the ship pulls in to the docks at Southampton, and Alec is shivering despite the thick army-issued coat and the hordes of fellow soldiers crowded at the railings with him.

"It's the old country alright. You don't get weather like this anywhere else in the world," someone near him jokes above the din of the cheering, and the people around him all laugh. Alec keeps quiet and tugs his collar up against the unfamiliar cold.

He scans the cheering crowd on the docks, a sea of umbrellas, shawls, hats, and newspapers used as makeshift protection from the rain. Everyone is waving and smiling, but Alec isn't interested in all these strangers. He waits his turn impatiently, duffle slung over his shoulders, and adjusts his beret a little nervously before snapping back to a parade rest position in an attempt to curb his restlessness. He isn't as dangerously thin as he was when he was rescued, but he knows he doesn't look like the boy that his family saw off a lifetime ago in Batavia. Volunteers hand him a packet of cigarettes and a foil-wrapped snack as he comes down the gangplank, and Alec thanks them absently as he accepts them, his eyes on the crowd. Come to think of it, maybe his family isn't here. He checked the map when he was laid up in the hospital, and Buckinghamshire, where the Lightwoods now live, is a few hours away by train. Alec tamps down his disappointment and squares his shoulders, giving the reporters a wide berth as he follows the line for the transport to the transit camp for all the soldiers whose families weren't able to come, and almost dismisses it as wishful thinking when he hears someone calling his name.

"Alexander!"

Alec looks up, and Magnus is right there with his mother, Max, Izzy, and Jace. It's a vision right out of Alec's dreams, except that Jace and Izzy are both in uniform. Alec can feel all eyes on him when he walks as quickly towards them as he can, the flashlights from the reporters' cameras blinding in his periphery vision. What a sight they must make, a whole family of children who have served their country to glorious victory, poster children for the war effort, Alec thinks bitterly, but then his mother and siblings pull him into a hug and he pushes all that aside. He's home now, and nothing else matters. 

"You look like shit," Jace informs him with a grin. Jace's overly-prominent cheekbones and sunken cheeks make him look a bit like a grinning skull, but he pats Alec's arm in understanding when Alec doesn't quite manage a smile. 

Magnus is standing a little to the side, giving them space, and Izzy huffs in exasperation when she drags him closer. "Go on, then," she says in a low voice. 

Magnus looks haggard and worn, like he's been to hell in Alec's pursuit in the six years that Alec has been gone, but his smile is blinding. Alec wouldn't have blamed Magnus if he had moved on and found someone else to love and love him, especially when they didn't know if Alec was still alive, but all his lingering doubts dissipate when he's standing right here in front of Magnus, watching the years fall away from his face now that Alec is finally home. Magnus is only holding himself back because they're in public, and Alec knows how much that hurts him because he feels exactly the same. 

"I lost your jade pendant," he tells Magnus. Technically, Alec hid it under a loose tile in his sleeping quarters when he realised that the British forces were surrendering, but he has no idea if the bunker is still standing or if someone has discovered it since. 

Magnus just laughs softly, wiping away a tear, and shakes his head. "I got you back, so it has served its purpose."

He can feel the reporters circling like vultures, eager for a story. Alec isn't a war hero by any stretch of the imagination, just another poor bastard who was imprisoned in the Far East for years, and he knows they'll have no qualms tearing him and his family to shreds if they decide that there's something left for them to rip apart. But Alec reaches for Magnus' hand quietly and gives it a squeeze, because they've both been to hell and back, and life is fragile and too brief not to hold the hand of the man he loves, even if it's only for a while.

Magnus smiles and squeezes back, and Alec takes a deep breath for what feels like the first time in a long time, a clean breath of air that smells like rain.

"Let's go home."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The End.
> 
> A massive thank you to everyone for reading and commenting. I know it's been an emotionally heavy story *BIG HUGS*
> 
> Some history notes for those who are interested:
> 
> \- The railway linking Siam (Thailand) and Burma (Myanmar) was nicknamed the "death railway" and had the highest POW death rate of all the Japanese camps. About a third of the prisoners working on it died.  
\- Bletchley Park was the principle code-breaking centre for the Allied forces during WW2. The work they did there is estimated to have ended the war earlier by 2-4 years.  
\- Many of the surviving POWs managed to get back on their feet and lived to a ripe old age despite everything they'd suffered during the war.
> 
> Come find me at @tethysea on Twitter or @la-muerta on tumblr if that's your thing! Until next time, XOXO.


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